GIFT   OF 
f\  y\  o  y\  t 


M 


LOVE   AND   LETTERS 


BY 
FREDERIC  ROWLAND  MARVIN 


"Give  all  to  love; 
Obey  thy  heart; 
Friends,  kindred,  days, 
Estate,  good-fame, 
Plans,  credit,  and  the  Muse, — 
Nothing  refuse." 

— Emerson. 


BOSTON 
SHERMAN,  FRENCH  6-  COMPANY 

1911 


COPYRIGHT,  1911 
SHERMAN,  FRENCH  6^  COMPANY 


TO 

MY    BELOVED    WIFE 

PERSIS 


"O  happy  they!  the  happiest  of  their  kind! 
Whom  gentler  stars  unite,  and  in  one  fate 
Their  hearts,  their  fortune,  and  their  beings  blend.1' 

Thompson. 


241046 


PREFACE 

The  farmer  who  requested  to  be  buried  in 
Petrarch's  grave  that  his  dust  might  mingle  with 
that  of  the  poet,  could  not  secure  to  himself  so 
great  an  honor  even  though  he  offered  one  hun 
dred  crowns  of  gold  for  the  privilege.  He 
sought  for  himself  a  distinction  that  in  no  way 
belonged  to  him,  and  that  could  not  under  any 
possible  circumstances  be  other  than  offensive  to 
all  lovers  of  art  and  letters.  But  when  Lafayette 
sent  for  earth  from  Bunker  Hill  that  it  might  be 
placed  over  his  body  after  its  interment,  the  se 
lectmen  of  Boston  saw  at  once  the  beauty  and 
propriety  of  his  request.  They  took  earth  from 
the  spot  where  General  Warren  fell,  and  with  it 
forwarded  to  Lafayette's  agent  a  certificate  stat 
ing  that  it  was  earth  from  one  of  the  most  sacred 
of  places.  The  certificate  was  signed  by  three 
of  the  oldest  men  in  Boston,  all  of  whom  felt  that 
their  names  were  honored  by  being  thus  associ 
ated  with  the  glory  of  the  new  republic. 

In  these  pages  I  seek  for  myself  no  foreign 
distinction  to  which  I  may  lay  no  rightful  claim. 
I  endeavor  only  to  associate  my  name  with  those 
friendly  studies  which  are  natural  to  all  lovers  of 
good  books  who  delight  in  quiet  evenings  spent  in 
the  library  with  such  volumes  as  dear  old  Charles 
Lamb  used  to  touch  with  reverence  and  kiss  with 
tenderness.  Fletcher  said  this  for  me  and  for  all 
who  love  good  books  long  ago  when  he  wrote: 


PREFACE 

"That  place  that  does 

Contain  my  books,  the  best  companions,  is 
To  me  a  glorious  court,  where  hourly  I 
Converse  with  the  old  sages  and  philosophers." 

With  some  consciousness  of  my  many  limita 
tions  and  of  the  imperfections  in  my  work,  I  yet 
offer  to  my  readers  a  literary  fare  that  has  filled 
for  me  many  a  long  winter  evening  with  delight, 
and  that  I  truly  hope  may  bring  pleasure  to 
others. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 1 

II.  THE  GOOD  NEIGHBOR       ...  93 

III.  SILENCE 109 

IV.  NOBLE  DEEDS  OF  HUMBLE  MEN  151 

V.     THE    COLLEGE    AND    BUSINESS 

LIFE    ........     ^  161 

VI.     OLD  AGE     ......    ...     .      .      .   187 

VII.     CULTURE 223 

VIII.     VICISTI  GALILEE  .  235 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

VTLS   KUVOV   arrjp   dAaA^/Aevos    eXBw 
7r€i<m€  yvrai/ca   re  KOL  <£i'Aov  viov, 


ycpov,    OVTLS   KUVOV   arrjp 


dAA'   a 

',   ovS'   iOtXova-LV  a.\f]6ia.   fj.v@i]cracrOai. 
8e   K*  dATyrct'cDV   'lOaKrjs   c?   Sijfjiov   L 


/cat  ot  oSt'po/z€n;  /?A£</>apwv  UTTO  SaKpva 

7}   ^€/it5   €(rri  yvrai/cos,   £7rr/v   Troai 

Homer. 

Ah,  wasteful  woman  !  she  who  may 
On  her  sweet  self  set  her  own  price, 
Knowing  he  cannot  choose  but  pay  — 
How  has  she  cheapened  Paradise  ! 
How  given  for  naught  her  priceless  gift; 
How  spoiled  the  bread  and  spilled  the  wine, 
Which,  spent  with  due,  respective  thrift 
Had  made  brutes  men  and  men  divine  ! 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

WHEN  Mrs.  Lewes,  the  legal  wife  of  G.  H. 
Lewes,  died  in  England  some  time  ago, 
an  old  story,  false  and  even  absurd  in  every 
detail,  was  revived.  It  was  asserted  that  Mr. 
Lewes  had  deliberately  deserted  his  wife,  moved 
thereto  by  the  powerful  intellect  and  personal 
qualities  of  the  gifted  author  of  "Adam  Bede." 
Mrs.  Lewes  was  rehabilitated  and  readorned, 
and  the  only  logical  inference  that  could  be 
drawn  from  the  tender  and  pathetic  words 
spoken  over  her  grave  and  published  from  one 
end  of  England  to  the  other  was  that  she  was 
a  much  abused  woman.  The  real  facts  in  the 
case  were  set  forth  in  a  statement  which  appeared 
in  The  London  Tim£s.  It  was  made  by  an 
Edinburgh  lady  who  was  well  acquainted  with 
both  Mr.  Lewes  and  George  Eliot.  A  due  re 
gard  for  truth  as  well  as  a  sense  of  justice  re 
quires  that  the  statement  which  was  signed  by 
E.  Katharine  Bates,  and  which  is  not  so  widely 
known  as  could  be  wished,  should  be  published 
whenever  the  opportunity  presents  itself.  The 
statement  runs  thus : 

"Some  years  ago  I  was  taking  tea  with  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Charles  Lewes,  (he  being  the  son  of  George 
Henry  Lewes,  to  whom  George  Eliot  left  her  MSS. 
and  most  of  her  possessions,)  and  the  conversation 
turned  upon  the  subject  to  which  your  remarks  re 
fer.  I  had  often  heard  some  such  suggestions 


2  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

made,  and  had  greatly  desired  to  know  the  truth 
of  the  matter.  That  afternoon  Mr.  Charles  Lewes 
accompanied  me  downstairs  to  the  hall  door,  and 
by  a  sudden  and  overpowering  impulse  I  was  led 
to  ask  him  whether  it  were  true  that  his  father 
had  left  his  mother  owing  to  the  influence  of 
George  Eliot.  'It  is  a  wicked  falsehood/  was  his 
answer.  'My  mother  had  left  my  father  before  he 
and  George  Eliot  had  ever  met  each  other.  George 
Eliot  found  a  ruined  life,  and  she  made  it  into  a 
beautiful  life.  She  found  us  poor  little  motherless 
boys,  and  what  she  did  for  us  no  one  on  earth 
will  ever  know ' ;  and  his  whole  face  lighted  up  with 
emotion,  and  the  tears  came  to  his  eyes  as  he  said 
this  to  me.  He  then  continued  in  these  words:  'I 
am  the  son  of  the  woman  who  people  say  was 
wronged  by  George  Eliot  and  by  my  father.  I  have 
told  you  the  real  truth  of  the  matter,  and  you  have 
my  authority  to  repeat  it  wherever  and  whenever 
such  a  statement  is  made  again  in  your  presence/  " 

It  will  be  generally  admitted  that  the  question 
asked  was  anything  but  delicate.  Only  the 
closest  friendship  saved  it  from  being  a  piece 
of  unqualified  impertinence.  Yet  it  is  well  for 
us  and  for  the  memory  of  the  dead  that  the 
question  was  asked.  It  was  asked  none  too 
soon.  Not  long  after  the  interview  the  useful 
and  gentle  life  of  Mr.  Charles  Lewes  came  to  an 
end  in  far-away  Egypt. 

Lewes,  according  to  those  who  knew  him  best, 
was  not  what  is  commonly  called  "a  magnetic 
man";  strangers  found  him  cold  and  unrespon 
sive.  The  Rev.  O.  B.  Frothingham,  who  for 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  3 

many  years  represented  more  than  any  one  else 
in  all  the  English-speaking  world  what  is  known 
as  "The  Free  Religious  Movement,"  had  some 
thing  of  the  same  temperament.  He  was  con 
scious  of  the  barrier  that  nature,  reenforced  by 
a  studious  disposition  and  fine  culture,  had 
erected  between  himself  and  ordinary  men  and 
women.  To  his  friend,  Mr.  Chadwick,  he  la 
mented  the  "thin  sheet  of  ice"  that  deterred  many 
worthy  and  earnest  souls  from  reaching  him  with 
their  sympathy  and  moral  support.  Mr.  Lewes 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  either  aware  of  his 
aloofness  or  generous  enough  to  regret  the  dif 
ficulty  experienced  by  the  uninitiated  in  ap 
proaching  him.  Moncure  D.  Conway,  who  knew 
him  well,  did  not  discover  in  his  face  anything 
like  "sweetness  and  light" ;  and  he  tells  us  in 
his  "Autobiography"  that  Lewes  "did  not  have 
a  pleasing  voice  nor  any  look  of  sensibility ; 
but,"  he  adds,  "there  was  always  a  quick  atten 
tion  on  his  part  and  deference  whenever  George 
Eliot  said  anything." 

There  must  have  been  something  personally 
attractive  in  the  character  and  companionship 
of  the  man  who  could  win  the  heart  of  such  a 
woman  as  George  Eliot.  The  portrait  which  is 
commonly  reproduced  does  not  represent  him  as 
in  any  wise  physically  attractive — some  pictures 
make  him  even  repulsive.  But  by  common  agree 
ment  he  was  a  man  of  rare  conversational  powers 
and  of  pleasing  address.  Perhaps  it  was 
Mr.  Lewes'  literary  work  and  standing  that 


4  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

first  interested  George  Eliot.  Certainly  it 
was  his  offer  of  literary  assistance,  based  upon 
an  early  discovery  of  her  unusual  ability,  that 
led  to  her  recognition  by  the  public  as  a  woman 
of  genius  and  a  writer  of  great  promise.  Had 
she  never  known  Mr.  Lewes  the  recognition 
might  have  been  delayed,  but  it  could  hardly 
have  lingered  a  very  long  time.  Her  first  in 
clination  was  in  the  direction  of  philosophy. 
She  was  a  student  of  Comte,  translated  "Leben 
Jesu"  and  assisted  Dr.  Chapman  in  the  con 
duct  of  the  Westminster  Review.  It  was  Lewes 
who  first  discovered  her  genius  in  the  realm  of 
fiction,  and  it  was  through  his  advice  and  en 
couragement  that  her  serious  attention  was  given 
to  the  construction  of  the  novel.  His  offer  of 
assistance  was  not  hastily  accepted,  nor  was  his 
effort  to  make  her  acquaintance  immediately  suc 
cessful.  She  shrank  from  publicity  of  every 
kind,  and  a  wall  of  natural  reserve  had  to  be 
in  some  measure  demolished  before  the  two 
gifted  writers  could  meet  in  friendly  conversa 
tion.  No  doubt  the  peculiar  social  position  of 
Mr.  Lewes  had  much  to  do  with  her  early  re 
luctance  to  make  his  acquaintance,  and  to  profit 
by  his  offer  of  literary  assistance.  But  the 
offer  was  based  upon  a  real  admiration  for  her 
genius,  and  a  sincere  and  honorable  desire  to  be 
of  service  to  one  peculiarly  gifted,  and  whose 
views  and  tastes  were  in  many  respects  strik 
ingly  in  accord  with  his  own.  She  was  inter 
ested  in  many  different  departments  of  thought 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  5 

and  learning.  She  was  a  good  linguist.  Her 
translation  of  Feuerbach's  "Essence  of  Chris 
tianity"  had  won  for  her  the  admiration  of 
scholarly  men  and  women.  And,  added  to  all 
this,  her  religious  opinions  and  attitude  must 
have  helped  to  recommend  her  to  the  unbeliev 
ing  mind  of  Mr.  Lewes.  She  had  departed 
from  the  faith  of  her  childhood,  and  had  em 
braced,  if  not  in  its  entirety,  at  least  in  its  es 
sential  features,  the  doctrines  of  Auguste  Comte. 
The  Edinburgh  Review  described  her,  in  review 
ing  her  work  after  her  death,  as  "the  first  great 
godless  writer  of  fiction  that  has  appeared  in 
England,  and  perhaps  in  Europe."  The  Re 
view  did  not  intend  to  use  the  term  "godless"  in 
any  offensive  sense;  it  employed  the  word  as  the 
one  best  fitted  to  describe  the  real  attitude  of  the 
woman  toward  what  is  commonly  called  religion. 
It  was  not  contended  that  she  was  opposed  to 
God,  but  only  that  she  did  not  believe  that  He 
had  any  real  existence.  The  Review  continued: 

"In  the  world  of  earnest  art,  George  Eliot  is  the 
first  legitimate  fruit  of  our  modern  atheistic  pietism; 
and  as  such  she  is  an  object  of  extreme  interest, 
if  not  to  artistic  epicures,  at  any  rate  to  all  anxious 
inquirers  into  human  destiny.  For  in  her  writings 
we  have  some  sort  of  presentation  of  a  world  of 
high  endeavor,  pure  morality,  and  strong  enthusi 
asm,  existing  in  full  force,  without  any  reference 
to,  or  help  from,  the  thought  of  God." 

It  seems  to  us  that  George  Eliot's  attitude 
toward  religion,  giving  that  word  its  usual  mean- 


6  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

ing,  accounts  in  some  measure  for  the  fascina 
tion  which  Mr.  Lewes  felt  in  the  society  and 
conversation  of  the  gifted  writer  who  was  for 
so  many  years  his  true  though  not  his  legal 
wife.  They  were  of  one  heart  and  of  one  soul. 
Their  union,  notwithstanding  its  status  in 
English  law,  the  many  unfortunate  embarrass 
ments  to  which  it  gave  rise,  and  the  unfavora 
ble  comments  which  it  evoked,  was  ethically  a 
true  marriage,  noble  and  in  every  way  honorable. 
When  Mr.  Lewes  met  Marian  Evans  he  was 
in  a  peculiar  position.  He  was  legally  the  hus 
band  of  a  woman  with  whom  he  did  not  live,  and 
whose  conduct  had  absolved  him  from  all  respon 
sibility  for  her  support  and  happiness.  His 
wife,  who  was  a  woman  of  great  personal  beauty, 
but  as  well  most  wayward  and  reckless,  had  some 
years  before  eloped  with  a  lover.  Upon  her 
protestations  of  repentance,  he  had  forgiven  her, 
and  received  her  back  into  his  home  as  his  wife. 
This  was,  of  course,  a  condonation  of  her  crime 
which  prevented  him,  when  she  again  eloped, 
from  obtaining  a  divorce.  He  could  not  marry 
so  long  as  his  wife  in  name,  though  no  longer 
such  in  reality,  lived.  For  some  time  Mr.  Lewes 
and  Marian  Evans  hesitated,  not  certain  what 
course  it  was  best  to  pursue,  but  at  last,  after 
consultation  with  friends,  they  determined  to  join 
their  fortunes  without  the  sanction  of  the  church, 
and  to  face  for  the  great  love  they  bore  each 
other  the  social  disfavor  that  they  knew  must 
be  encountered.  From  that  time  on  in  the 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  7 

friendly  circle  in  which  they  moved,  George  Eliot 
was  known  and  honored  as  Mrs.  Lewes. 

The  life  of  George  Eliot  in  the  home  of  Mr. 
Lewes  must  have  been  in  no  small  measure  a 
happy  one;  and  yet,  no  doubt,  there  was  mingled 
with  its  gladness  some  degree  of  mental  distress 
and  loneliness  growing  out  of  its  firm  and  de 
termined  protest  against  social  injustice  and  a 
narrow  and  conventional  ethical  system.  In 
this  belief  I  am  encouraged  by  the  opinion  of 
Mr.  Frederick  Locker-Lampson  freely  expressed 
in  his  book,  "My  Confidences": 

"I  am  sure  that  she  (George  Eliot)  was  very 
sensitive,  and  must  have  had  many  a  painful  half 
hour  as  the  helpmate  of  Mr.  Lewes,  by  accepting 
the  position  in  which  she  had  placed  herself  in  op 
position  to  the  moral  instincts  of  most  of  those  whom 
she  held  most  dear.  Though  intellectually  self- 
contained,  I  believe  she  was  singularly  dependent  on 
the  emotional  side  of  her  nature.  With  her,  as 
with  nearly  all  women,  she  needed  a  something  to 
lean  upon.  ...  I  have  an  impression  that  she 
felt  her  position  acutely,  and  was  unhappy." 

When  the  legal  Mrs.  Lewes  died  it  was  thought 
that  a  marriage  according  to  law  would  be 
effected  at  once,  and  it  was  rumored  that  such 
a  union  had  taken  place.  But  the  two,  already 
accustomed  to  regard  themselves  as  husband  and 
wife,  and  unwilling  to  discredit  the  existing  rela 
tionship  by  any  formalities  that  might  cast  dis 
credit  upon  sincere  affection  and  a  pure  life, 


8  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

continued  to  live  together  "after  the  Lord's  holy 
ordinance,"  though  not  after  the  less  important 
ordinance  of  man.  There  was  also  a  natural 
shrinking  from  further  publicity.  Both  Mr. 
Lewes  and  George  Eliot  were  constantly  before 
the  world,  and  their  social  relations  had  been  the 
subject  of  much  gossip.  It  is  not  surprising 
that  they  shrank  from  figuring  in  another  sen 
sational  affair  for  the  entertainment  of  idle  and 
foolish  people  and  an  army  of  brazen-faced 
newspaper  reporters.  They  seem  to  have  cared 
little  for  the  praise  and  even  less  for  the  cen 
sure  of  the  world.  They  did  not  wish  to  be  lions, 
and  in  each  other's  society  they  found  ample 
companionship  and  happiness. 

Another  story  of  George  Eliot  and  George 
Henry  Lewes  is  the  uncommon  one  which  Mr. 
Richard  C.  Jackson  told  Walter  Pater,  and 
which  Mr.  Wright  has  preserved  in  his  "Life 
of  Pater."  The  story  runs  thus: 

"One  day  (in  1854)  at  a  dinner  party,  George 
Eliot  being  among  the  guests,  somebody  happened 
to  observe  that  George  Henry  Lewes  was  seriously 
ill,  and  without  a  soul  in  the  house  to  wait  upon  him. 
George  Eliot  pricked  up  her  ears,  and  then  saying, 
hurriedly,  'Please  excuse  me,  I  must  go/  she  left 
the  table.  She  made  her  way  straight  to  Lewes' 
house  and  knocked  at  the  door.  After  she  had 
waited  a  considerable  time  the  sick  man  put  his 
head  out  of  the  bedroom  window  and  enquired  who 
was  there. 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  9 

"  'It  is  I,  Miss  Evans/  cried  George  Eliot.  'I 
have  come  to  nurse  you.  Let  me  in,  and  I  won't 
leave  the  house  till  you  are  better/  " 

Mr.  Jackson  went  on  to  say  that  that  was  the 
true  story  of  the  origin  of  the  intimacy  between 
George  Eliot  and  George  Henry  Lewes ;  that 
the  love  between  them  was  purely  platonic;  and 
that  they  never  occupied  together  the  same  bed 
room.  Those  who  wish  to  do  so  can  believe 
Mr.  Jackson's  story,  but  the  world  will  never 
accept  it,  for  the  very  good  reason  that  it  be 
littles  both  George  Eliot  and  Mr.  Lewes,  and  also 
for  the  further  reason  that  it  lacks  the  stamp  of 
truth. 

It  was  a  shock  to  the  entire  English-speaking 
world  when,  after  Lewes'  death,  George  Eliot 
married  Mr.  John  Walter  Cross,  a  merchant  in 
London,  who  was  twenty  years  her  junior. 
She  married  him  in  a  Christian  church,  and, 
worst  of  all,  signed  her  name  "Marian  Evans, 
spinster,"  thus  ignoring  Lewes  and  confessing 
that  her  relations  with  him  had  not  been  "after 
the  Lord's  holy  ordinance."  It  was,  no  doubt, 
a  sad  climax  to  a  life  of  great  achievement.  The 
dream  and  the  romance,  so  idealistic  and  beauti 
ful,  faded  away  in  the  dull  drab  of  a  rainy  day 
in  some  desolate  moorland.  The  woman  who 
had  not  for  twenty  years  believed  that  there  was 
a  God  took  His  name  upon  her  lips  in  the  most 
fashionable  church  in  London,  bowed  her  head 
when  the  priest  recited  the  prayer,  and  so  far 


10  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

as  we  can  discern  subscribed  to  what  she  did  not 
believe,  and  left  the  temple  of  religion  "a  shat 
tered  idol." 

George  Eliot  rested  so  firmly  upon  Mr.  Lewes 
for  her  ethical  courage  that  when  he  was  with 
her  no  more  she  was  unable  to  maintain  an  inde 
pendence  which  she  never  possessed  apart  from 
him.  She  rested  so  entirely  upon  his  compan 
ionship  that  when  she  was  deprived  of  it  the 
necessity  for  other  support  was  absolute.  This, 
I  think,  explains  in  some  measure  her  marriage 
with  a  man  twenty  years  her  junior,  her  implied 
confession  that  her  relations  with  Mr.  Lewes 
were  not  what  they  should  have  been,  and  her 
practical  recantation  which  we  have  no  reason 
to  believe  was  sincere.  She  had  acquired  wealth 
and  fame,  and  she  had  conquered  prejudice  and 
public  disapproval.  That  conquest,  however, 
had  been  won  with  Mr.  Lewes  by  her  side,  and 
without  his  companionship  it  could  not  have  been 
maintained.  His  death  meant  for  her  complete 
personal  collapse  in  everything  resembling  social 
and  ethical  independence. 

Many  foolish  and  self-righteous  attacks  have 
been  made  upon  the  character  of  George  Eliot. 
Among  these  may  be  mentioned  a  book  by  the 
Rev.  W.  L.  Watkinson,  called  "The  Influence  of 
Scepticism  on  Character,"  from  which  I  excerpt 
these  unworthy  lines: 

"It  was  with  this  all-important  institution  (mar 
riage)  that  George  Eliot  trifled,  and  by  consenting 
to  live  with  a  man  whose  wife  was  still  alive  she 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  11 

lent  her  vast  influence  to  the  lowering  in  the  na 
tional  mind  of  the  sense  of  marital  obligation  which 
involves  the  happiness  and  dignity  of  millions." 

"  The  two  chosen  representatives  of  the  superior 
morality  set  aside  truth  for  a  lie,  preferred  their 
own  will  and  pleasure  to  purity  and  justice,  and 
exalted  their  lawless  fancy  above  a  palpable  public 
duty,  and  lived  together  in  adultery." 

"The  wronged  wife  in  the  background  always 
makes  herself  felt;  the  torn  veil  is  on  the  floor  no 
matter  what  gaieties  may  be  going  on,  and  one  is 
conscious  of  a  sickening  sensation  all  through  the 
history/' 

"The  wronged  wife,"  indeed !  Few  men  would 
instance  the  life  of  the  first  Mrs.  Lewes  as  one 
of  unmerited  suffering  because  of  an  unkind  hus 
band's  cruelty.  The  sanctimonious  Mr.  Watkin- 
son  must  certainly  have  known  that  his  words 
were  false.  If  there  ever  was  a  woman  who  did 
not  place  her  own  will  and  pleasure  above  the 
happiness  of  others,  and  who  refused  to  place 
these  above  purity  and  justice,  that  woman  was 
George  Eliot. 

The  editor  of  the  Christian  World,  a  paper 
published  in  London,  is  of  the  same  opinion  with 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Watkinson.  These  are  the  words 
of  an  anonymous  contributor  which  he  approves 
and  prints : 

"George  Eliot  preached  the  doctrine  of  renun 
ciation — the  doctrine  of  self-sacrifice — the  doctrine 


12  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

of  breaking  the  neck  of  inclination,  though  stiff  as 
steel,  under  the  foot  of  duty:  but  it  was  not  given 
to  her  to  give  a  transcendent  example  of  this  Chris 
tian  virtue  in  her  own  life." 

Mr.  Lewes  was  certainly  a  true  and  loving  hus 
band  to  George  Eliot,  which  fact  inclines  us  all 
the  more  to  the  belief  that  he  was  the  same  kind 
of  a  husband  to  the  unhappy  wife  who  deserted 
him  for  a  lover.  Let  George  Eliot  herself  speak 
in  this  connection:  these  are  her  words,  which 
cast  a  strong  and  beautiful  light  upon  her  rela 
tion  to  Mr.  Lewes : 

"What  greater  thing  is  there  for  two  human  souls 
than  to  feel  that  they  are  joined  for  life  to 
strengthen  each  other  in  all  labor,  to  rest  on  each 
other  in  all  sorrow,  to  minister  to  each  other  in  all 
pain,  to  be  one  with  each  other  in  silent,  unspeakable 
memories  at  the  moment  of  the  last  parting." 

In  truth  the  relation  which  these  two  sustained 
to  each  other  was  precisely  the  kind  described  by 
George  Eliot  in  her  words  above  cited.  It  was 
all  that  love  could  ask,  and  it  was  all  that  purity 
and  justice  could  require. 

Interesting  in  this  connection  is  the  story  of 
the  divorce  of  Lady  Millais  from  the  dis 
tinguished  art-critic,  John  Ruskin,  and  of  her 
marriage  with  the  great  artist  who  has  immortal 
ized  her  rare  beauty  upon  many  a  canvas  known 
to  lovers  of  whatever  pleases  the  cultivated  taste 
and  imagination  in  all  lands.  In  Lady  Millais 
Nature  provided  the  artist  with  face  and  figure 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  13 

such  as  painters  and  sculptors  delight  to  imitate 
in  colors  and  reproduce  in  marble.  But  not  only 
was  she  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  women,  she 
was  as  well  marvellously  brilliant  and  fascinating 
as  a  conversationalist.  "She  was  a  handsome, 
tall  young  woman,"  wrote  one  who  knew  her  well, 
"with  rosy  cheeks  and  wavy  black  hair."  Ruskin 
was  much  older  than  she,  but  he  fell  deeply  in 
love  with  her;  and  she,  then  Euphemia  Gray,  a 
young  and  gay  Scottish  beauty,  obeyed  her  par 
ents,  and  gave  the  hand  that  sculptors  delighted 
to  contemplate  to  a  man  honest  as  the  daylight, 
but  often  crabbed  and  opinionated,  and  in  many 
ways  ill-suited  to  her  artistic,  joyous,  and  mer 
curial  temper.  The  marriage  was  not  a  happy 
one.  Her  heart  and  spirits  failed,  and  Ruskin 
could  not  but  see  that  he  had  made  one  of  the 
saddest  of  mistakes.  All  the  world  knew  that  he 
was  a  man  of  just  spirit  and  kind  heart.  He 
did  what  he  could  to  comfort  and  cheer  his  young 
wife,  but  the  fates  were  against  him.  He  was 
too  wise  a  man  not  to  know  what  Richter  had 
known  before  him,  that  "the  Fates  and  Furies 
glide  with  linked  hands  over  life  not  less  surely 
and  swiftly  than  do  the  Graces  and  Sirens" ;  and 
he  was  as  well  too  wise  a  man  to  contend  against 
manifest  destiny  when  at  last  arrived  the  auspi 
cious  moment  for  a  noble  and  kindly  self-sacri 
fice. 

In  1854  John  Millais  was  for  a  time  with  Rus 
kin  in  Scotland.  He  painted  Ruskin  standing 
by  the  Falls  of  Glenfinias.  The  two  men  were 


14  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

companionable  and  happy  together.  Long  hours 
were  spent  in  the  most  delightful  fellowship. 
But  Ruskin  could  not  be  blind  to  the  fact  that 
the  young  girl  who  by  parental  arrangement  was 
his  wife,  but  who  had  almost  nothing  in  common 
with  him,  had  in  the  society  of  the  artist  a  new 
life.  The  enthusiasm  ripened  into  love.  With  a 
generosity  as  astonishing  as  it  was  noble,  John 
Ruskin  placed  the  beautiful  hand  of  the  young 
wife  in  that  of  his  friend,  and,  with  a  voice  trem 
ulous  with  emotion,  gave  them  both  his  kindly 
blessing.  A  decree  of  nullity  dissolved  the  old 
marriage  that  was  not  made  in  heaven,  and  on 
the  third  of  June,  1855,  the  new  union  of  Mil- 
lais  and  Mrs.  Ruskin  was  celebrated  at  Dower's 
Well,  Ruskin  himself  being  present  when  his  for 
mer  wife  pronounced  the  solemn  words  that  made 
her  the  life-long  companion  of  another. 

There  is,  I  think,  in  all  literature  no  paragraph 
more  touching  than  that  in  which  Cotton  Mather 
records  his  renouncement  of  the  holiest  of  human 
affections,  at  what  he  believed  to  be  the  call  of 
a  Divine  Love.  He  may  have  had  before  his 
mental  vision  the  ancient  story,  so  familiar  to  him 
and  to  men  of  his  way  of  thinking,  of  the  trial 
of  Abraham's  faith  at  Jehovah- j  ireh,  when  the 
aged  patriarch  stretched  out  his  hand  to  slay  his 
son  at  the  command  of  God.  Our  New  Eng 
land  fathers  were  great  literalists — they  too 
often  followed  the  letter  rather  than  the  spirit. 
Mather  was  a  man  of  many  pitiable  mistakes, 
as  the  early  annals  of  Massachusetts  make  only 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  15 

too  clear.  If  ever  a  human  soul  was  surely  mis 
taken,  this  old  Puritan  preacher  who  thought 
to  please  his  Heavenly  Father  by  renouncing  a 
dying  wife  was  above  all  others  deceived.  This  is 
the  sad  paragraph: 

"When  I  saw  to  what  a  point  of  resignation  I 
was  now  called  of  the  Lord,  I  resolved,  with  His 
help,  therein  to  glorify  Him.  So,  two  hours  be 
fore  my  lovely  consort  expired,  I  kneeled  by  her 
bedside,  and  I  took  into  my  two  hands  a  dear  hand, 
the  dearest  in  the  world.  With  her  thus  in  my 
hands,  I  solemnly  and  sincerely  gave  her  up  unto 
the  Lord:  and  in  token  of  my  real  Resignation,  I 
gently  put  her  out  of  my  hands,  and  laid  away  a 
most  lovely  hand,  resolving  that  I  would  never 
touch  it  more.  This  was  the  hardest,  and  perhaps 
the  bravest  action  that  ever  I  did.  She  .  .  . 
told  me  that  she  signed  and  sealed  my  act  of  resig 
nation.  And  though  before  that  she  called  for  me 
continually,  she  after  this  never  asked  for  me  any 
more." 

Whether  Ruskin  is  to  be  approved  or  disap 
proved  will  depend  upon  conditions  underlying 
the  decree  of  nullity,  and  which  cannot  be  dis 
cussed  in  this  place.  If  the  grounds  were  real 
and  sufficient  there  remains  nothing  to  be  said. 
To  the  decree  Ruskin  consented,  and  to  it  the 
courts  also  agreed,  and  therefore  there  remains, 
I  think,  no  ground  for  public  discussion,  even 
were  such  discussion  seemly. 

Mr.  Alger  has  well  written  in  his  "Friendships 
of  Womea" : 


16  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

"The  banes  of  domestic  life  are  littleness,  falsity, 
vulgarity,  harshness,  scolding  vociferation,  an  in 
cessant  issuing  of  superfluous  prohibitions  and  or 
ders,  which  are  regarded  as  impertinent  interfer 
ences  with  general  liberty  and  repose,  and  are 
provocative  of  rankling  or  exploding  resentments. 
The  blessed  antidotes  that  sweeten  and  enrich  domes 
tic  life  are  refinement,  high  aims,  great  interests, 
soft  voices,  quiet  and  gentle  manners,  magnanimous 
tempers,  forbearance  from  all  unnecessary  com 
mands  or  dictation,  and  generous  allowances  of 
mutual  freedom.  Love  makes  obedience  lighter 
than  liberty.  Man  wears  a  noble  allegiance,  not  as 
a  collar,  but  as  a  garland.  The  Graces  are  never 
so  lovely  as  when  seen  waiting  on  the  Virtues;  and, 
where  they  thus  dwell  together,  they  make  a 
heavenly  home." 

Love  must  have  in  it  something  larger  and  no 
bler  than  passion.  There  must  be  oneness  of 
sympathy,  and  delight  in  companionship  founded 
upon  a  common  ideal  in  life.  Only  through  such 
an  ideal  is  it  possible  to  rise  above  the  vulgar  lit 
tlenesses  that  make  life  barren.  There  seems  to 
have  been  in  the  united  lives  of  Lewes  and  the 
author  of  "Adam  Bede"  the  ideal  described.  We 
find  it  in  lesser  degree,  and  yet  as  distinctly,  in 
the  love  that  made  forever  one  the  common  des 
tiny  of  Sir  John  Millais  and  the  beautiful  woman 
who  was  once  the  mismated  wife  of  Ruskin. 
This  same  ideal  (though  the  marriage  was  in  this 
case  perfectly  regular  if  we  leave  out  of  sight  its 
clandestine  and  "runaway"  features)  may  be  dis- 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  17 

covered   also   in   the   one  life   and  aspiration   of 
Robert  and  Elizabeth  Browning. 

Whatever  is  out  of  the  common  ordeu  of  things 
is  sure  to  draw  down  upon  itself  more  or  less  ad 
verse  criticism.  No  greater  harshness  of  judg 
ment  was  apportioned  to  Lewes  than  was  at  an 
earlier  period  meted  out  to  Martin  Luther. 
Thousands  of  good  men  and  women  looked  with 
the  utmost  abhorrence  upon  the  marriage  of  the 
Reformer,  himself  a  monk,  with  a  nun  who  was 
under  a  vow  of  "perpetual  chastity."  In  how 
different  a  light  that  marriage  now  presents  it 
self  to  us  in  this  later  age  of  the  world!  There 
was  discovered  some  years  ago  in  the  Schloss 
Mainberg,  not  far  from  the  city  of  Schweinfurt- 
on-the-Main,  a  valuable  relic:  it  is  the  drinking 
cup  which  Lucas  Cranach  painted  and  gave  to 
Luther  on  his  wedding  day.  It  is  to  us  a  very 
sacred  treasure,  but  once  it  would  have»  been  re 
garded  as  not  only  of  no  value  whatever  as  a 
memento,  but  as  an  accursed  thing  associated 
with  the  adulterous  union  of  two  persons  who 
had  no  moral  right  to  live  together  as  husband 
and  wife.  Both  monk  and  nun  were  wedded  to 
the  church.  The  binding  obligation  of  the  com 
pact  that  thus  joined  them  could  be  dissolved  by 
death  alone.  Only  Luther's  followers,  few  in 
number,  dared  view  the  matter  in  a  different 
light;  yet  the  time  approaches  when  over  all  our 
earth  the  marriage  of  Luther  will  seem  the  right 
and  natural  thing  it  most  certainly  was.  The 
time  will  also  come  when  in  the  case  of  Lewes, 


18  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

as  in  that  of  the  Reformer,  the  spirit  will  take 
precedence  over  the  letter,  and  the  conventional 
will  be  lost  sight  of  in  a  just  and  reasonable  view 
of  marriage.  But  the  world  will  always  find  it 
hard  to  forgive  George  Eliot  for  the  painful  dis 
loyalty  to  Lewes  that  connects  itself  with  her 
second  marriage.  The  union  of  Mr.  Lewes  and 
George  Eliot  wronged  no  one ;  it  made  two  won 
derful  and  beautiful  lives  happy;  it  added  grace 
and  sweetness  to  a  home  that  was  ideal;  and  it 
gave  to  the  world  literature  that  might  other 
wise  have  been,  in  part  at  least,  denied  it.  Fool 
ish  is  the  remonstrance  of  an  unenlightened  con 
science  that  lays  such  undue  stress  upon  mere 
form. 

"Marriage  is  a  matter  of  more  worth 
Than  to  be  dealt  with  by  attorneyship." 

What  Luther  thought  of  his  wife  may  be 
learned  from  his  will,  which  was  discovered  in 
the  archives  of  the  Evangelical  Synod  of  Hun 
gary.  To  her  he  leaves  all  his  property  because 
"she  has  always  treated  me  as  a  pious  and  faith 
ful  wife  should  treat  her  husband;  because  she 
has  always  loved  me,  respected  me,  and  taken 
care  of  me ;  and  because — Heaven  be  thanked  for 
that  rich  blessing — she  has  given  me  five  living 
children  and  educated  them."  He  states  still  an 
other  reason  for  bequeathing  all  that  he  has  to 
her:  "Because  I  will  not  that  she  shall  be  de 
pendent  of  the  children,  but  the  children  shall 
be  dependent  of  her,  for  they  shall  respect  and 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  19 

obey  her,  such  as  the  commandment  of  God  says." 
Evidently  through  all  the  ages  there  runs  one 
law  coming  to  life  in  good  hearts  under  what 
ever  faith  or  civilization.  That  law  was  at  work 
in  Greek  and  Roman  days  as  it  was  later  in  Ger 
many,  and  still  later  in  England.  Pliny  the 
younger  wrote  in  his  letter  to  the  aunt  of  his 
wife  Calpurnia  these  words  that  should  be  oftener 
printed  and  read: 

"She  loves  me,  the  surest  pledge  of  her  virtue; 
and  adds  to  this  a  wonderful  disposition  to  learn 
ing,  which  she  has  acquired  from  her  affection  to 
me.  She  reads  my  writings,  studies  them,  and  even 
gets  them  by  heart.  You  would  smile  to  see  the 
concern  she  is  in  when  I  have  a  cause  to  plead, 
and  the  joy  she  shows  when  it  is  over.  She  finds 
means  to  have  the  first  news  brought  her  of  the 
success  I  meet  with  in  court.  If  I  recite  anything 
in  public,  she  cannot  refrain  from  placing  herself 
privately  in  some  corner  to  hear.  Sometimes  she 
accompanies  my  verses  with  the  lute,  without  any 
master  except  love,  the  best  of  instructors.  From 
these  instances  I  take  the  most  certain  omens  of 
our  perpetual  and  increasing  happiness,  since  her 
affection  is  not  founded  on  my  youth  or  person, 
which  must  gradually  decay,  but  she  is  in  love  with 
the  immortal  part  of  me." 

Always  the  essence  of  whatever  is  good  will  be 
found  not  in  the  form  but  in  the  thing  itself. 
Religion,  no  matter  what  may  be  the  system  of 
theology  embraced,  is  of  the  spiritual  nature;  so 
also  is  Love,  when  also  a  thing  of  the  heart.  In 


20  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

the  right-minded  it  is  a  pure  flame  and  will  honor 
"sanctimonious  ceremonies,"  demanding  as  well 
where  these  may  be  had  that  they  shall  "with  full 
and  holy  rite  be  ministered" ;  but  never  where  no 
fault  may  be  imputed,  and  yet  these  may  not  be 
observed,  as  in  the  case  of  Lewes  and  George 
Eliot,  will  the  enlightened  soul,  through  the  false 
shame  of  a  cowardly  conscience,  prove  untrue  to 
a  supreme  affection.  Marriage  in  its  highest  and 
best  sense  is  founded  upon,  and  is  the  natural 
expression  of,  a  supreme  affection.  This  it  is 
our  poets  have  in  mind  when  they  write  of  "the 
marriage  of  souls."  It  endures  after  the  pas 
sion  associated  with  its  beginning  is  no  more,  and 
it  remains  even  when  marriage  in  its  ordinary 
sense  and  significance  does  not  supervene.  After 
the  death  of  Washington  Irving  there  was  found 
a  lock  of  hair  and  a  miniature  which  through  long 
years  he  had  cherished.  He  never  forgot  the 
young  girl  to  whom,  when  a  youth,  his  heart 
was  given.  She  was  snatched  away  by  death, 
but  he  always  regarded  himself  as  hers.  The 
first  supreme  affection  is  of  the  spiritual  essence 
of  marriage,  though  it  may  be  no  marriage  in 
the  usual  sense  of  the  word  has  ever  taken  place. 
But  sometimes  it  so  happens  that  the  first  union 
is  not  that  of  a  supreme  affection;  then  there 
yet  remains  sufficient  room  for  its  later  blessing, 
and  what  we  call  the  second  marriage  may  be  in 
an  ideal  sense  the  first.  Thus  it  was  with  John 
Stuart  Mill,  in  whose  "Autobiography"  are  these 
words : 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  21 

"Between  the  time  of  which  I  have  spoken  and 
the  present,  took  place  the  most  important  events 
of  my  private  life.  The  first  of  these  was  my  mar 
riage,  in  April,  1851,  to  a  lady  whose  incomparable 
worth  had  made  her  friendship  the  greatest  source 
to  me  both  of  happiness  and  of  improvement,  during 
many  years  in  which  we  never  expected  to  be  in 
closer  relation  to  one  another.  Ardently  as  I  could 
have  aspired  to  this  complete  union  of  our  lives  at 
any  time  in  the  course  of  my  existence  at  which 
it  had  been  practicable,  I,  as  much  as  my  wife, 
would  far  rather  have  foregone  that  privilege  for 
ever  than  have  owed  it  to  the  premature  death  of 
one  for  whom  I  had  the  sincerest  respect,  and  she 
the  strongest  affection.  That  event,  however,  hav 
ing  taken  place  in  July,  1849,  it  was  granted  to 
me  to  derive  from  that  evil  my  own  greatest  good, 
by  adding  to  the  partnership  of  thought,  feeling, 
and  writing  which  had  long  existed,  a  partnership 
of  our  entire  existence.  For  seven  and  a  half  years 
that  blessing  was  mine;  for  seven  and  a  half  only! 
I  can  say  nothing  which  could  describe,  even  in 
the  faintest  manner,  what  that  loss  was  and  is. 
But  because  I  know  that  she  would  have  wished  it, 
I  endeavor  to  make  the  best  of  what  life  I  have 
left,  and  to  work  on  for  her  purposes  with  such 
diminished  strength  as  can  be  derived  from  thoughts 
of  her,  and  communion  with  her  memory." 

The  phraseology  here  was,  no  doubt,  sug 
gested  to  the  mind  of  Mill  by  a  long  acquaint 
ance  with  the  teachings  of  Comte,  to  which  he 
in  large  measure  subscribed.  Winwood  Reade, 
who  was  an  avowed  disciple  of  the  French  philos- 


22  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

opher,  represents  one  of  the  characters  in  his 
book,  "The  Outcast,"  as  addressing  a  friend  who, 
like  Mill,  mourned  the  death  of  an  almost  idol 
ized  wife,  in  these  words: 

"Preserve  her  memory;  place  her  image  on  the 
altar  of  your  heart;  believe  that  she  is  the  witness 
and  judge  of  your  actions  and  your  thoughts;  then 
your  life  will  be  noble  and  pure.  Love  without 
hope,  then  your  love  will  be  to  you  as  a  religion, 
for  none  so  nearly  approaches  the  love  that  is  di 
vine." 

Very  interesting  in  this  connection  is  the  Mar 
riage  Document  which  Mr.  Mill  composed  and 
signed  in  the  stillness  and  seclusion  of  his  library. 
No  one  can  read  the  Document  without  perceiv 
ing  how  noble  was  Mr.  Mill's  idea  of  marriage: 

"6th  March,  1851. 

"Being  about,  if  I  am  so  happy  as  to  obtain  her 
consent,  to  enter  into  the  marriage  relation  with 
the  only  woman  I  have  ever  known  with  whom  I 
would  have  entered  into  that  state;  and  the  whole 
character  of  the  marriage  relation  as  constituted 
by  law  being  such  as  both  she  and  I  entirely  and 
conscientiously  disapprove,  for  this  among  other 
reasons,  that  it  confers  upon  one  of  the  parties  to 
the  contract,  legal  power  and  control  over  the  per 
son,  property,  and  freedom  of  action  of  the  other 
party,  independent  of  her  own  wishes  and  will;  I, 
having  no  means  of  legally  divesting  myself  of 
these  odious  powers  (as  I  most  assuredly  would  do 
if  an  engagement  to  that  effect  could  be  made 
legally  binding  on  me),  feel  it  my  duty  to  put  on 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  23 

record  a  formal  protest  against  the  existing  law  of 
marriage,  in  so  far  as  conferring  such  powers;  and 
a  solemn  promise  never  in  any  case  or  under  any 
circumstances  to  use  them.  And  in  the  event  of 
marriage  between  Mrs.  Taylor  and  me  I  declare  it 
to  be  my  will  and  intention,  and  the  condition  of 
the  engagement  between  us,  that  she  retains  in  all 
respects  whatever  the  same  absolute  freedom  of 
action,  and  freedom  of  disposal  of  herself  and  of  all 
that  does  or  may  at  any  time  belong  to  her,  as  if 
no  such  marriage  had  taken  place;  and  I  absolutely 
disclaim  and  repudiate  all  pretence  to  have  acquired 
any  rights  whatever  by  virtue  of  such  marriage. 

"J.  S.  MILL." 

Mr.  Mill  gives  us  in  his  "Autobiography"  a 
number  of  beautiful  allusions  to  the  spiritual 
and  intellectual  worth  of  his  wife,  and  many 
acknowledgments  of  his  indebtedness  to  her  in 
both  his  life  and  his  work.  He  seemed  to  find 
satisfaction  and  comfort  in  these  allusions  and 
acknowledgments.  In  this  he  is  not  alone. 
Literature  is  full  of  examples  of  the  most 
pathetic  tenderness.  Where  the  marriage- 
union  is  what  it  should  be,  death  cannot  destroy 
it.  The  "final  catastrophe"  which  we  await  with 
what  composure  we  can  command  may  even  in 
crease  the  strength  of  love  by  subtracting  from  it 
such  perishable  elements  as  are  of  this  earth 
alone.  How  many  authors  know,  as  did  Jobn 
Stuart  Mill,  that  their  success  is  that  of  an 
other's  brain — another's,  yet  their  own.  The 
writer  of  these  lines  is  well  assured  that  whatever 


24  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

of  worth  or  beauty  it  may  have  been  given  him 
to  provide  for  the  feast  of  life  can  be  traced 
without  doubt  or  hesitancy  to  the  dear  compan 
ionship  of  a  wife  who  is  the  gladness  of  his  ex 
istence  and  the  inspiration  of  his  working  hours. 

Dr.  Gurney,  who  was  Mr.  Mill's  physician,  is 
authority  for  the  statement  that  Mr.  Mill  per 
sisted  in  living  at  his  residence  in  Avignon, 
though  he  knew  that  the  place  was  unwhole 
some.  He  refused  to  have  the  trees  about  the 
house  cut  down  for  fear  the  nightingales  would 
be  driven  away ;  and  he  would  not  leave  Avignon 
because  it  was  there  he  had  lived  with  his  wife 
through  all  those  happy  days  he  so  delighted  to 
remember.  In  the  cemetery  just  beyond  the  city 
he  had  laid  to  rest  all  that  was  mortal  of  that 
dear  wife;  and,  though  erysipelas,  of  which  Mr. 
Mill  died,  was  known  to  be  endemic  in  the  valley 
where  the  house  was  situated,  he  would  not  go  far 
from  the  tomb  of  his  wife,  which  it  was  his 
custom  to  visit  several  times  in  a  week.  His  de 
votion  to  the  memory  of  his  wife  at  last  cost  him 
the  few  years  he  might  have  reasonably  counted 
upon  for  work.  Sad  years  they  would  have  been, 
beyond  all  doubt,  but  they  might  have  been  use 
ful  to  the  world. 

Francis  Ellingwood  Abbot,  whose  death  at  his 
own  hands  closed  most  tragically  a  life  of  rare 
scholarship  and  of  the  finest  aspirations,  thus  ded 
icated  his  book,  "The  Syllogistic  Philosophy,"  to 
which  he  had  given  so  many  years  of  the  most 
careful  investigation; 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  25 

TO    THE    MEMORY 
OF 

MY  WIFE 

IN   WHOSE   DIVINE   BEAUTY   OF   CHARACTER 

LIFE  AND  SOUL 

I  FOUND  THE  GOD  I  SOUGHT 

OCT.  18,  1839:  OCT.  23,  1893 

SHE  MADE  HOME  HAPPY,  AND  WAS  ALL  THE  WORLD 

TO    ME. 

It  seems  to  the  writer  of  this  paper  that  Dr. 
Abbot  comes  as  near  as  any  one  ever  can  to  a 
demonstration  of  personal  immortality.  Where 
he  leaves  the  question,  so  far  as  can  be  seen,  we 
shall  all  of  us  have  to  leave  it.  An  interesting  fact 
in  connection  with  his  argument  is  that  of  the 
perpetual  influence  of  the  thought  of  his  wife  in 
both  the  discussion  and  the  conclusions  arrived  at. 
Her  death  impressed  him  very  much  as  that  of 
Mrs.  Mill  impressed  her  husband;  in  both  cases 
the  relationship  was  intensely  spiritual;  in  both 
cases  the  memory  was  almost  of  the  nature  of  a 
religion.  It  was  the  memory  of  a  "divine  beauty 
of  character,  life  and  soul."  Mr.  Mill  did  not 
believe  in  immortality,  while  Dr.  Abbot  did;  but 
both  realized  their  highest  aspirations  in  wedded 
love.  Mr.  Alger  has  well  said  in  his  "Friend 
ships  of  Women,"  "As  the  ferment  of  passion 
ceases,  the  lees  settle,  and  a  transparent  sympa 
thy  appears,  reflecting  all  heavenly  and  eternal 
things."  Of  course  the  accidents  and  circum 
stances  of  love  change,  as  everything  in  life  shows 


26  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

us.  The  passionate  elements,  blissful  but  unrest- 
ful,  fade,  and  slowly  the  tranquil  orb  of  a  spir 
itual  love  rises  in  the  clear  evening  of  declining 
years.  Ebers  makes  one  of  the  characters  in  his 
novel,  "An  Egyptian  Princess,"  say  that  love  is 
always  the  same  thing,  and  that  people  will  love 
in  every  age  as  Sappho  loved.  There  is  a  sense 
in  which  that  is  true ;  and  yet  human  develop 
ment,  which  includes  the  unfolding  of  the  pas 
sions,  like  a  mighty  river  moves  on,  now  in  stately 
grandeur  and  now  in  foam  and  torrent,  until  at 
last  the  sea  is  reached  and  all  the  noise  and  tur 
moil  of  life  are  forever  hushed. 

There  are  those  who  represent  married  love  as 
little  more  than  an  idealization  of  the  sensual 
nature.  They  tell  us  that  the  spiritual  element 
came  in  with  the  asceticism  of  early  Christianity, 
when  everything  connected  with  the  body  was 
pronounced  evil.  But  certainly  love  was  not  all 
of  it  sensual  in  the  old  Greek  and  Roman  days, 
though,  as  Mr.  Finck  has  pointed  out  in  his 
"Primitive  Love  and  Love-Stories,"  the  popular 
belief  has  always  been  to  the  contrary.  Finck 
quotes  from  Robert  Wood's  "Essay  on  the  Origi 
nal  Genius  and  Writings  of  Homer,"  printed  in 
1775,  these  words:  "Is  it  not  very  remarkable 
that  Homer,  so  great  a  master  of  the  tender  and 
pathetic,  who  has  exhibited  human  nature  in  al 
most  every  shape  and  under  every  view,  has  not 
given  a  single  instance  of  the  powers  and  effects 
of  love,  distinct  from  sensual  enjoyment,  in  the 
'Iliad'  ?"  Well,  whatever  may  or  may  not  be  true 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  27 

of  Homer's  account  of  love  in  his  day  and  in 
still  more  remote  times,  there  certainly  are  to  be 
found  in  ancient  literature  examples  of  romantic 
and  spiritual  love  between  the  sexes.  Of  course 
the  spiritual  is  often  associated  with  the  sensual, 
very  much  as  it  is  in  our  own  day,  and  in  the 
lives  of  men  and  women  personally  known  to 
us.  Pericles  and  Aspasia  may  have  been  great 
sinners,  but  between  them  there  was  something 
vastly  different  from  mere  sensual  gratification. 
Pericles  was  not  a  fool  to  be  taken  with  a  simper 
and  a  smile.  He  was  an  illustrious  orator,  states 
man  and  warrior  who  for  forty  years  was  at  the 
head  of  affairs  in  Athens.  Aspasia,  if  she  was 
a  courtesan  in  any  sense  that  may  be  attached 
to  that  word,  was,  nevertheless,  a  woman  who 
could  converse  with  Socrates  about  such  themes 
as  interested  his  great  mind.  Is  it  to  be  believed 
that  her  home,  the  centre  of  the  finest  culture 
and  the  most  brilliant  conversation,  was  only  the 
cover  for  mere  animal  en j  oyment  ?  When  Seneca 
asked,  "What  can  be  sweeter  than  to  be  so  dear 
to  your  wife  that  it  makes  you  dearer  to  your 
self,"  had  he  in  mind  nothing  more  than  those 
attractions  that  might  have  rendered  Paulina 
pleasing  to  the  sensualist?  The  phrase,  common 
in  that  day,  "As  pale  as  Seneca's  Paulina,"  re 
pels  the  charge  that  mere  sensual  attraction  was 
the  foundation  of  all  domestic  life  in  Greek  and 
Roman  days.  When  the  reformer  Phocion 
had  drunk  the  hemlock,  his  body  was  refused 
burial  in  Attic  soil.  No  Athenian  might  kindle 


28  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

the  funeral  pyre.  But  his  wife,  faithful  to  him 
after  his  death  as  during  his  life,  came  with  her 
handmaids  and  Canopion,  whose  name  Plutarch 
has  preserved,  and  removed  the  body  beyond  the 
frontier.  There  she  obtained  fire,  and  the 
funeral  pile  was  lighted.  When  the  obsequies 
were  ended  she  did  not  neglect  the  customary 
libations.  Then  that  noble  wife  gathered  up  the 
bones  of  the  one  she  loved  more  than  any  other 
person  living  or  dead,  and,  in  the  darkness  of 
night,  she  took  them  to  her  own  house  in  Athens. 
Plutarch  records  that  she  buried  the  bones  of  her 
husband  beneath  her  own  hearthstone,  and  over 
them  breathed  this  prayer:  "Blessed  hearth,  to 
your  custody  I  commit  the  remains  of  a  good 
and  brave  man ;  and,  I  beseech  you,  protect  and 
restore  them  to  the  sepulchre  of  his  fathers  when 
the  Athenians  return  to  their  right  minds." 

Of  all  loves,  married  love  is  the  best.  It  has 
in  it  nothing  of  the  lover's  "cruel  madness"  and 
nothing  of  his  "wild  delight,"  but  it  has  in  it 
great  peace  and  kindness.  It  is  full  of  abiding 
confidence  and  of  that  beautiful  accord  which 
makes  two  lives  to  be  but  one.  A  visitor  to  the 
home  of  Wordsworth  wrote :  "I  saw  the  old  man 
walking  in  the  garden  with  his  wife.  They  were 
both  quite  old,  and  he  was  almost  blind ;  but  they 
seemed  like  sweethearts  courting,  they  were  so 
tender  to  each  other  and  so  attentive."  There 
is  a  sunset  love  in  its  way  quite  as  beautiful  as 
is  the  more  often  praised  love  of  youth's  early 
morning.  Poets  of  long  ago  celebrated  it  in 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  29 

songs  we  translate  and  retranslate  with  en 
thusiasm  into  every  language  all  over  the  world. 
Thus  Paulus  Silentiarius  sang  of  "Love  in  Old 
Age" — and  he  was  not  alone,  for  with  him  sang 
immortal  ones  whose  voices  sound  out  as  sweetly 
and  as  full  of  melody  to-day  as  once  they 
sounded  in  the  ears  of  generations  long  gone  to 
rest: 

"Let  others  boast  of  charms  divine, 
The  agile  step  and  graceful  air; 
More  lovely  is  thy  wrinkled  face, 
And  threads  of  silver  in  thy  hair. 

I'd  rather  fold  thee  in  my  arms 

Than  press  the  sweetest  maid  that  lives; 

Thy  winter  brings  more  warmth  of  love 
Than  all  her  youthful  summer  gives."  * 

As  ordinary  and  even  trivial  words  when  trans 
lated  into  tender  music  capture  the  most  sluggish 
imagination  and  infuse  into  it  new  life,  so  a  com 
mon  nature  transfigured  with  beauty  wins  its 
way  to  the  hardest  heart.  Well  writes  the  world's 
great  poet: 

"All  orators  are  dumb  when  beauty  pleadeth." 

There  is  a  beauty  no  artist  can  transfer  to 
canvas,  and  no  sculptor  carve  in  marble;  a  beauty 
we  cannot  behold  with  the  eye,  nor  describe  with 
pen  or  voice ;  a  beauty  we  can  only  feel  as  an  un 
defined  presence.  Not  all  souls  are  sensitive  to 

i  Marvin:  "Flowers  of  Song  from  Many  Lands,"  p.  75. 


30  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

its  influence.  A  certain  spiritual  clairvoyance  is 
necessary  in  order  to  find  it  out,  but  when  once 
discovered,  its  power  over  its  discoverer  is  resist 
less.  We  wonder  what  a  certain  woman  could 
discern  in  a  man  who  seemed  to  us  dull  and  pro 
saic,  that  induced  her  to  leave  all  and  follow  him. 
She  was  not  deceived.  There  were  qualities  in 
his  character  and  presence  we  could  neither  see 
nor  appreciate.  A  very  shrewd  and  practical 
man  said :  "Judged  by  the  wisdom  of  this  world, 
and  by  the  rules  and  maxims  of  policy,  I  am  a 
fool  to  think  of  marrying  the  woman  whose  name 
I  have  spoken ;  but  I  tell  you  honestly,  that  I 
would  cheerfully  part  from  all  I  have  and  all  I 
hope  to  have,  might  I  but  call  her  'wife.' '  She 
was  twenty  years  older  than  he,  and  socially  his 
inferior;  but  they  married  and  lived  happily  to 
gether.  George  Eliot  writes:  "It  is  a  deep 
mystery — the  way  the  heart  of  man  turns  to  One 
woman  out  of  all  the  rest  he's  seen."  It  may  be  a 
deep  mystery,  but  it  would  be  a  deeper  one  were 
it  otherwise. 

Yet  the  anonymous  author  of  "The  History 
and  Philosophy  of  Marriage"  believes  that  man 
is  by  nature  a  polygamist,  and  that,  left  to  him 
self,  under  whatever  religion  or  civilization,  he 
inclines  to  more  than  one  woman.  He  may  love 
one  woman  more  than  any  other,  but  he  is  never 
or  seldom  under  the  control  of  what  has  been 
called  a  "supreme  affection" — that  is  to  say, 
an  exclusive  affection.  In  his  "Contarini  Flem 
ing,"  Lord  Beaconsfield  expresses  a  very  differ- 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  31 

ent  belief  when  he  tells  us  that  "To  a  man  who 
is  in  love  the  thought  of  another  woman  is  unin 
teresting,  if  not  repulsive."  That  may  be  a 
strong  way  of  expressing  the  exclusiveness  of 
the  supreme  affection,  but  it  accords  with  the 
general  conviction  of  mankind,  and  it  seems  to 
be  sustained  by  what  we  know  of  social  relations 
in  every  age  and  land.  There  is  a  difference  be 
tween  the  East  and  the  West.  Oriental  marriage 
is,  as  compared  with  marriage  in  England  and 
America,  a  carnal  and  unspiritual  relationship. 
The  songs  that  celebrate  it  are  voluptuous,  and 
concern  themselves  for  the  most  part  with  sen 
sual  gratification.  The  ideal  element  is  want 
ing,  and  so  also  is  that  supreme  affection  which 
centres  in  one  love  that  endures  because  ideal 
rather  than  carnal.  It  is  true  of  love  as  of 
religion,  which  is  somewhat  of  the  same  nature, 
that  the  earthly  passes  away  with  the  disappear 
ing  of  youth,  health,  and  material  beauty ;  while 
the  spiritual  continues  even  when  the  person 
loved  has  long  ceased  to  live.  The  love  that 
enabled  Ruskin  to  choose  happiness  for  his  wife 
rather  than  for  himself  was  surely  of  an  un 
selfish  nature,  and  we  must  acknowledge  it  to 
have  been  such  whether  we  approve  or  disapprove 
of  his  great  surrender. 

If  again  the  reader's  attention  may  be  di 
rected  to  the  life  and  character  of  John  Stuart 
Mill,  it  is  quite  to  the  point  to  add  that  with 
Mr.  Mill  love  was  something  that  not  only  sanc 
tified  the  relation  of  the  sexes  and  lifted  it  into 


32  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

the  realm  of  the  ideal,  but  that  also  diffused 
in  the  heart  a  sentiment  of  kindness  that  dis 
posed  its  possessor  to  be  helpful  to  others.  No 
sooner  was  Mill  dead  than  Herbert  Spencer  pub 
lished  the  fact  that  Mill  had  offered  to  guar 
antee  his  publisher  against  loss  by  publishing  his 
(Spencer's)  works,  although  those  works  corn- 
batted  some  of  Mr.  Mill's  own  views.  Mr. 
Mill's  life  was  full  of  a  generous  kindness,  but 
that  kindness,  at  least  in  its  outward  expression, 
was  not  a  birthright.  He  was  not  naturally 
approachable.  He  was  regarded  as  cold,  un 
sympathetic  and  distant.  Only  the  select  few 
were  at  home  in  his  society.  His  later  and  more 
mature  life,  so  rich  in  friendship  and  breadth 
of  sympathy,  he  owed  to  that  transforming  love 
which  lighted  up  for  him  the  entire  world.  Even 
after  the  transformation  there  was  still  within 
him  an  element  that  at  times  awakened  in  others 
a  spirit  of  antagonism.  No  sooner  was  Mr. 
Mill  dead  than  another  man  having  nothing  of 
Spencer's  friendship  openly  attacked  Mill's 
reputation  in  a  most  vicious  manner.  Mr.  James 
Hayward,  a  translator  of  "Faust"  and  a  man 
of  considerable  ability,  denounced  Mr.  Mill  in 
The  London  Times  as  "an  apostle  of  the  phi 
losophy  of  unbelief,"  and  a  man  of  impure  doc 
trine  and  life.  To  this  the  Rev.  Stopford 
Brooke  replied  from  his  pulpit  of  a  Sunday 
morning.  But  Mr.  Hayward  was  not  to  be 
silenced  so  easily ;  he  printed  at  his  own  cost  a 
rejoinder  in  the  shape  of  an  open  letter  to  Mr. 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  33 

Brooke  in  which  he  repeated  his  attack  with  aug 
mented  fury.  There  were  those  who  thought 
the  point  well  taken  when  Mr.  Hayward  addressed 
to  the  preacher  these  caustic  words :  "Mr.  Mill's 
scepticism  certainly  forms  one  reason  among 
many  why  his  praises  should  not  have  been  ex 
ceptionally  and  ostentatiously  heralded  from  the 
pulpit  of  one  of  the  Queen's  chaplains."  Surely 
the  pulpit  was  not  the  place  for  that  able  de 
fense,  since  Mr.  Mill's  views  were  not  those  which 
a  Queen's  chaplain  would  be  expected  to  sup 
port  when  he  put  on  the  surplice  and  undertook 
to  recite  the  Athanasian  creed.  The  preacher 
was  in  that  matter  as  far  removed  from  honesty 
as  was  George  Eliot  when  she  celebrated  her 
second  marriage  in  a  Christian  church  and  with 
a  Christian  service.  But  Mr.  Brooke's  vindi 
cation  expressed  the  feeling  of  cultivated  men 
and  women,  and  was  in  itself  a  noble  argument. 
Of  course  the  charge  of  immorality  was  based 
upon  Mill's  long  years  of  friendship  with  the 
married  woman  who  was  afterward  his  wife ;  but 
those  years  furnished,  in  truth,  no  argument; 
for  they  were  unmarked,  so  far  as  any  human 
being  ever  knew,  by  the  slightest  departure  from 
purity  in  word  or  deed.  The  sermon,  though 
in  a  wrong  place,  still  shows  how  vitally  Mill 
had  seized  upon  the  public  mind,  and  how  deeply 
he  had  impressed  the  hearts  of  men.  Something 
had  changed  him  from  the  cold,  unsympathetic 
thinker  he  was  by  nature,  and  had  given  him  an 
affectionate  place  in  the  great  Soul  of  Humanity. 


34*  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

It  was  beyond  all  doubt  the  transforming  love  of 
the  gracious  and  noble  woman  through  whom  at 
last  he  came  to  view  life  in  its  entirety. 
Shelley  wrote  in  his  Journal : 

"Beware  of  giving  way  to  trivial  sympathies. 
Content  yourself  with  one  great  affection — with  a 
single  mighty  hope;  let  the  rest  of  mankind  be  the 
subjects  of  your  benevolence,  your  justice  and,  as 
human  beings,  of  your  sensibility;  but  as  you  value 
many  hours  of  peace,  never  suffer  more  than  one 
ever  to  approach  the  hallowed  circle.'* 

Shelley's  philosophy,  which  is  not  so  selfish  as 
at  first  appears,  was,  consciously  or  otherwise,  a 
governing  principle  in  the  lives  of  the  men  and 
women  whose  personal  attachments  we  have 
studied.  It  is  true  that  neither  Lewes  nor  Mill 
was  indifferent  to  the  feelings,  desires  and  neces 
sities  of  mankind.  The  work  which  John 
Stuart  Mill  performed  in  his  study,  surrounded 
by  his  books,  was  one  that  had  for  its  chief  end 
the  improvement  of  the  condition  of  the  common 
people.  Neither  of  these  men  refused  to  con 
fer  with  unpretending  and  lowly  persons.  Yet 
never  did  they  wear  their  hearts  upon  their  sleeves, 
for  daws  to  peck  at.  A  serene  and  noble  re 
serve  shielded  them  from  those  wasteful  intru 
sions  that  cheapen  life  and  exhaust  power,  while 
a  supreme  affection  satisfied  the  profoundest  de 
sire  and  demand  of  the  heart.  To  make  use 
of  a  vulgar  but  expressive  phrase  that  comes  to 
us  from  a  popular  magazine,  "We  commonly  live 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  35 

all  over  the  lot."  Too  many  interests  render 
the  mind  unfit  for  the  faithful  and  competent 
care  of  any  one  of  them  that  may  appear  more 
important  than  the  others.  So  is  it  with  a  heart 
that,  loving  undiscriminatingly,  never  knows 
what  a  true  and  noble  attachment  really  means. 
Few  in  this  materialistic  age  of  the  world 
think  of  turning  to  the  life  of  Jonathan  Edwards 
for  a  story  of  sentiment  and  romance;  and  yet 
not  many  pictures  of  pure  love  and  exalted  pur 
pose  are  more  attractive  than  is  that  in  which 
the  great  philosopher  and  the  Puritan  maiden 
are  brought  before  us  in  all  the  strength  and 
sweetness  of  a  supreme  love  that  had  within  it  a 
spiritual  light  exalting  it  above  merely  earthly 
attachments,  and  making  it  in  a  very  true  sense 
religious.  Edwards  first  saw  Sarah  Pierrepont 
when  she  was  a  child  of  only  thirteen  summers, 
but  even  then  there  was  something  in  her  presence 
that  distinguished  her  from  other  women  of  her 
years.  Edwards  tells  us  that  notwithstanding 
her  tender  age  she  awakened  in  his  heart  a  deep 
and  permanent  affection  that  was  to  have  a  won 
derful  influence  over  all  his  subsequent  life,  and 
that  was  to  enrich  and  ennoble  her  own  life 
as  well.  She  has  been  described  as  the  possessor 
of  "a  rare  and  lustrous  beauty  both  of  form  and 
features."  With  this  beauty,  Dr.  Dwight  tells 
us,  "there  was  joined  a  loveliness  of  expression, 
the  combined  result  of  goodness  and  intelligence." 
Another  writer  tells  us  that  "there  was  a  beau 
tiful  and  natural  religious  enthusiasm  of  a  mystic 


36  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

character  that  illuminated  and  ennobled  her 
face,  and  gave  to  even  her  common  life  a  charm 
that  captivated  Edwards  from  the  first  moment 
of  his  meeting  with  her."  When  Edwards  was  in 
his  twentieth  year  he  wrote  of  Sarah  Pierrepont, 
then  in  her  thirteenth,  this  memorable  passage, 
which  Dr.  Chalmers  called  one  of  the  most  elo 
quent  in  all  our  English  language : 

"They  say  there  is  a  young  lady  in  New  Haven 
who  is  beloved  of  that  great  Being  who  made  and 
rules  the  world,  and  that  there  are  certain  seasons 
in  which  this  great  Being,  in  some  way  or  other 
invisible,  comes  to  her  and  fills  her  mind  with  ex 
ceeding  sweet  delight,  and  that  she  hardly  cares  for 
anything  except  to  meditate  on  Him;  that  she  ex 
pects  after  a  while  to  be  received  up  where  He  is, 
to  be  raised  up  out  of  the  world  and  caught  up 
into  heaven;  being  assured  that  He  loves  her  too 
well  to  let  her  remain  at  a  distance  from  Him  al 
ways.  There  she  is  to  dwell  with  Him,  and  to  be 
ravished  with  His  love  and  delight  forever.  There 
fore,  if  you  present  all  the  world  before  her,  with 
the  richest  of  its  treasures,  she  disregards  and 
cares  not  for  it,  and  is  unmindful  of  any  pain  or 
affliction.  She  has  a  strange  sweetness  in  her 
mind,  and  singular  purity  in  her  affections;  is  most 
just  and  conscientious  in  all  her  conduct;  and  you 
could  not  persuade  her  to  do  anything  wrong  or 
sinful,  if  you  would  give  her  all  the  world,  lest  she 
should  offend  this  great  Being.  She  is  of  a  won 
derful  calmness,  and  universal  benevolence  of  mind; 
especially  after  this  great  God  has  manifested  Him 
self  to  her  mind.  She  will  sometimes  go  about 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  37 

from  place  to  place  singing  sweetly;  and  seems  to 
be  always  full  of  joy  and  pleasure,  and  no  one 
knows  for  what.  She  loves  to  be  alone,  walking  in 
the  fields  and  groves,  and  seems  to  have  some  one 
invisible  always  conversing  with  her." 

Thus  did  the  young  man  Jonathan  Edwards 
picture  to  himself  the  physically  and  spiritually 
beautiful  Sarah  Pierrepont.  The  more  he  saw 
of  her  the  more  he  loved  her.  They  were  en 
gaged,  and  he  urged  that  the  marriage  should 
not  be  too  long  delayed.  "Patience,"  he  wrote 
her,  "is  commonly  esteemed  a  virtue,  but  in  this 
case  I  may  almost  regard  it  as  a  vice."  When 
they  were  united,  only  a  few  months  before  his 
ordination,  she  was  but  seventeen  years  of  age. 
Edwards  had  made  no  mistake.  The  lovely  girl 
who  held  such  wonderful  communion  with  God, 
and  whose  marvellous  beauty  was  equally  that 
of  person  and  of  the  spiritual  nature,  proved 
herself  to  be  no  idle  dreamer.  She  made  her 
husband's  home  at  Northampton  all  it  was  in 
the  power  of  any  woman  to  make  it.  As  a 
mother  the  record  of  her  life  challenges  admira 
tion  at  every  turn.  When  her  distinguished 
husband  had  increased  his  fame  and  had  come  to 
be  regarded  as  a  guide  and  leader  in  both  intel 
lectual  and  spiritual  things,  she  moved  by  his 
side  in  all  essential  matters  his  companion  and 
equal.  Whitefield  spent  a  few  days  in  her  home, 
and  left  his  testimony  for  succeeding  generations 
that  in  all  his  wanderings  he  had  "never  seen  a 
sweeter  couple." 


38  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

Edwards'  external  life  was  barren  of  adorn 
ment;  his  home  was  plain;  his  table  was  simple; 
and  his  labors  were  scarcely  appreciated  by  the 
uninstructed  men  and  women  for  whom,  during 
a  large  part  of  his  ministry,  he  toiled.  An 
ecclesiastical  dispute  in  which  he  was  wholly  in 
the  right  disturbed  his  peace  of  mind,  and  drove 
him  from  the  pulpit  of  a  church  in  which  he 
was  deeply  interested.  We  should  none  of  us 
like  to  live  as  he  lived,  without  art,  travel,  and 
the  conveniences  of  modern  civilization.  Nothing 
could  persuade  us  to  go  back  to  the  tallow 
candle,  the  well  in  the  back  yard,  and  the  weekly 
instead  of  the  daily  paper.  We  could  not  get  on 
with  a  Concord  coach  since  we  have  come  to  know 
the  luxury  of  the  steam  railroad  and  of  the 
automobile.  We  live  in  a  better  world  than  that 
in  which  Edwards  lived.  But  in  domestic  life 
we  do  well  if  we  are  as  fortunate  and  as  happy 
as  was  he,  notwithstanding  all  the  beauty  and 
comfort  that  enter  our  homes  and  make  them 
attractive.  His  intellectual  life  was  one  the 
world  will  long  remember,  but  his  heart  found 
its  deepest  satisfaction  in  a  love  that  made  the 
glory  of  public  achievement  seem  poor,  if  not 
actually  unattractive.  The  storm  of  discussion 
might  rage  without,  but  it  could  never  reach  that 
home  of  love. 

What  shall  be  said  of  Warren  Hastings,  whom 
Lord  Macaulay  has  immortalized  in  one  of  the 
noblest  essays  our  language  has  known  or  is 
likely  to  know  for  many  a  year  to  come?  Few 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  39 

of  all  the  readers  who  have  enjoyed  that  classic 
remember  that  the  great  Governor-General  of 
India  had  in  his  life  a  romantic  experience  that 
entitles  him  to  a  place  with  the  worthy  ones  who 
have  illustrated  for  others  the  lasting  power  of 
the  supreme  affection.  The  lady  who  was  later 
his  wife  was,  when  he  first  met  her,  the  wife  of 
a  German  Baron  who,  notwithstanding  his  title, 
was  an  artist,  if  the  painting  of  very  indifferent 
miniatures  can  make  one  an  artist.  Like  the 
English  painter  Millais,  our  German  Baron  was 
an  interested  party  in  what  has  been  facetiously 
called  "the  placing  of  a  wife."  But  the  English 
painter  was  a  man  of  genius  who  received  his 
wife  as  a  gift  of  friendship  from  her  husband, 
while  the  German  Baron  sold  his  wife  for  money 
which  the  distinguished  Governor-General  was 
only  too  glad  to  pay.  Ruskin's  wife  respected 
her  husband  though  she  did  not  love  him ;  but 
the  beautiful  consort  of  our  second-rate  and  mer 
cenary  Baron  Imhoff  despised  her  lord  and 
master  as  any  self-respecting  woman  would  have 
done  in  her  distressing  place. 

The  story  is  this:  Hastings  met  the  Baron 
and  his  wife  on  the  ship  that  transported  him 
to  India,  where  he  served  his  country  in  a  way 
that  made  him  deserve  more  at  her  hands  than 
he  received,  but  not  more  than  he  would  have 
received  had  there  been  no  Impeachment  and  no 
wrongs  leading  up  to  that  Impeachment.  The 
Baroness  Imhoff  was  a  woman  of  genius  and  ac 
complishments ;  and  Hastings  was  a  man  of  rare 


40  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

ability  and  fascination.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
they  came  to  love  each  other.  But  perhaps 
matters  would  have  progressed  no  further  had 
not  Hastings  fallen  ill.  Through  all  his  sick 
ness  on  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  for  that  was 
the  name  of  the  ship,  the  Baroness  nursed  him 
with  womanly  delicacy  and  tenderness;  and  long 
before  the  voyage  was  ended  the  two  were  prac 
tically  pledged  to  a  united  life.  There  were  no 
bitter  words  exchanged  between  husband  and 
lover,  nor  was  there  any  thought  of  a  duel.  Our 
Baron  of  the  brushes  and  paint-pot  had  more 
need  for  money  than  for  a  wife;  and,  in  truth, 
a  wife  like  the  Baroness  Imhoff  was  to  him  an 
impediment  and  nothing  more,  unless  her  charms 
could  be  turned  to  financial  profit.  They  were 
capable  of  such  conversion ;  and  the  new  rela 
tion  sustained  by  the  accomplished  woman  was 
due  to  the  tenderest  love  on  the  part  of  Hast 
ings  and  equally  to  the  most  sordid  selfishness 
on  the  part  of  her  husband.  Governor-General 
Hastings  and  the  Baroness  Imhoff  lived  together 
only  after  the  successful  prosecution  of  the  suit 
against  her  husband  for  divorce.  In  1777  the 
divorce  was  obtained,  and  soon  after  the  lovers 
were  united  in  marriage.  The  Baron  rejoiced 
in  the  possession  of  a  much  larger  fortune  than 
his  art,  if  such  it  might  be  called,  had  ever 
brought  him,  and  with  the  improvement  of  his 
financial  condition  he  disappears  from  view,  and 
we  hear  no  more  of  him.  For  nearly  fifty  years 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  41 

Hastings  and  his  wife  by  purchase  lived  together 
in  happy  wedlock.  Of  her  Macaulay  wrote, 
"She  had  an  agreeable  person,  a  cultivated  mind, 
and  manners  in  the  highest  degree  pleasing." 
That  she  was  as  the  distinguished  essayist  de 
scribed  her  to  be  is  in  some  measure  proved  by 
the  favor  she  found  in  the  sight  of  such  accom 
plished  and  good  women  as  Fanny  Burney  and 
Hannah  More,  and  also  by  the  regard  for  her 
which  King  George  III.  and  Queen  Charlotte 
entertained.  Hastings  loved  her  with  a  manly 
and  tender  affection.  Of  her  he  wrote  when  for 
a  brief  season  separated  from  her,  "Yesterday 
morning  I  held  in  my  arms  all  that  my  heart 
holds  dear;  O  my  Marian,  I  love  you  more  by 
far  than  life!  When  shall  I  again  see  you?" 
She  was  much  younger  than  he,  and  she  sur 
vived  him  many  years,  through  all  of  which  she 
remained  his  widow,  faithful  to  his  memory  as 
she  had  been  faithful  to  him  during  the  happy 
years  of  their  wedded  life. 

Emerson's  line,  "All  men  love  a  lover,"  has 
become  a  proverb.  Love  is  everywhere  recog 
nized  as  the  primitive  and  everlasting  passion, 
universally  felt.  With  it  our  race  began  its 
career,  and  through  its  Divine  allurements  that 
race  has  continued  to  inhabit  a  planet  that  were 
else  desolate  as  the  dead  moon  that  at  night  lights 
with  borrowed  glory  the  vast  expanse  above  our 
heads.  In  this  supreme  passion  earth  and  heaven 
seem  united: 


42  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

"In  heaven  ambition  cannot  dwell, 
Nor  avarice  in  the  vaults  of  hell; 
Earthly  these  passions,  as  of  earth, 
They  perish  where  they  have  their  birth; 
But  Love  is  indestructible." 

Old  Egypt  and  our  new  Republic  that  was 
but  yesterday  born  into  the  family  of  nations 
are  welded  together  in  the  eternal  circle  of  this 
passion.  It  is  not  long  ago  that  there  was 
dug  up  in  Chaldea  an  ancient  love  letter  traced 
in  clay.  The  clay,  baked  in  an  oven,  had 
hardened  until  it  was  so  firm  and  enduring  that 
not  a  line  nor  even  a  letter  could  be  effaced 
without  great  effort.  How  old  is  that  love 
letter?  No  one  knows.  But  of  this  we  may  be 
sure;  it  was  written  more  than  two  thousand 
years  ago.  The  young  woman  lived,  so  far  as 
we  can  discover,  in  Sippera;  and  her  lover  was 
a  resident  of  Babylon.  The  epistle  reads  thus: 

"To  the  lady  Kashbuya  says  Gimil  Marduk  this: 
May  the  Sun  God  of  Marduk  afford  you  eternal 
life.  I  write  that  I  may  know  how  your  health  is. 
Oh,  send  me  a  message  about  it.  I  live  in  Babylon 
and  have  not  seen  you,  and  for  this  reason  I  am 
very  anxious.  Send  me  a  message  that  will  tell 
me  when  you  will  come  to  me,  so  that  I  may  be 
happy.  May  you  live  long  for  my  sake." 

That  old  clay  love  letter,  written  so  many 
hundreds  of  years  ago,  is  not  very  unlike,  ex 
cept  in  its  ancient  phrasing,  the  tender  missives 
of  later  times.  Here  are  words  of  noble  affection 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  43 

written  by  Charles  I.  to  Henriette  Marie, 
daughter  of  Henry  IV.  of  France,  when  she  was 
coming  to  join  him: 

"Dear  Heart:  I  never  knew  till  now  the  good 
of  ignorance,  for  I  did  not  know  the  danger  thou 
wert  in  by  the  storm  before  I  had  assurance  of  thy 
happy  escape,  we  having  had  a  pleasing  false  re 
port  of  thy  safe  landing  at  Newcastle,  which  thine 
of  the  19th  of  January  so  far  confirmed  us  in  that 
we  were  at  least  not  undeceived  of  that  hope  till 
we  knew  certainly  how  great  a  danger  thou  hast 
passed,  of  which  I  shall  not  be  out  of  apprehension 
until  I  have  the  happiness  of  thy  company. 

"For  indeed  I  think  it  not  the  least  of  my  mis 
fortunes  that  for  my  sake  thou  hast  run  so  much 
hazard.  But  my  heart  being  full  of  admiration 
for  thee,  affection  for  thee,  and  impatient  passion 
of  gratitude  to  thee,  I  cannot  but  say  something, 
leaving  the  rest  to  be  read  by  thee  out  of  thine  own 
noble  heart.  CHARLES  R." 

Henry  IV.  was  an  enthusiastic  lover,  but  I 
cannot  say  that  he  was  a  very  constant  or  faith 
ful  lover.  Here  are  three  letters  that  he  ad 
dressed  to  his  "Dear  Heart,"  Madam  de  Lian- 
court; 

"My  Beautiful  Love:  Two  hours  after  the  ar 
rival  of  this  messenger,  you  will  see  a  cavalier  who 
loves  you  very  much;  they  call  him  the  King  of 
France  and  of  Navarre,  an  honorable  title  certainly, 
but  very  troublesome — that  of  your  subject  is  much 
more  delightful;  the  three  together  are  good  with 
any  sauce,  and  I  am  resolved  to  give  them  up  to 


44  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

no  one.     (This  12th  September,  from  our  delicious 
deserts  of  Fontainebleau.)" 

"My  True  Heart,  .  .  .  You  declare  that 
you  love  me  a  thousand  times  more  than  I  love  you. 
You  have  lied,  and  you  shall  maintain  your  lie  with 
the  arms  which  you  have  chosen.  ...  I  shall 
not  see  you  for  ten  days — it  is  enough  to  kill  me. 
I  will  not  tell  you  how  much  I  mind:  it  would  make 
you  too  vain." 

"My  Darling  Love, — March  1st.  The  fields  are 
much  sweeter  than  the  town.  Good-morning,  my 
all!" 

Some  of  the  best  love  letters  that  have  been 
preserved,  viewed  as  literature,  are  from  royal 
lovers.  Why  is  it  that  a  class  of  men  who  so 
seldom  succeed  in  literature  as  such  are  so  pe 
culiarly  successful  in  these  delicate  missives  of 
the  heart? 

Thus  Cromwell  addressed  his  wife,  who  forgot, 
as  many  a  wife  has  done  since  bis  day  and  as 
many  a  wife  will  do  in  the  future,  bow  full  the 
mind  and  heart  of  a  public  man  may  be  of  great 
affairs  and  great  services: 

"My  Dearest:  I  have  not  leisure  to  write  much; 
but  I  could  chide  thee  that,  in  many  of  thy  letters, 
thou  writest  to  me  that  I  should  not  be  unmindful 
of  thee  and  thy  little  ones.  Truly,  if  I  love  you 
not  too  well,  I  think  I  err  not  on  the  other  hand 
much.  Thou  art  dearer  to  me  than  any  creature,  let 
that  suffice.  I  rest  thine 

"OLIVER  CROMWELL." 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  45 

After  twenty  years  of  happy  married  life 
Washington  thus  gently  chided  his  anxious  wife : 

"My  Dearest  Life  and  Love:  You  have  hurt 
me,  I  know  not  how  much,  by  the  insinuation  in 
your  last  that  my  letters  to  you  have  been  less  fre 
quent  because  I  have  felt  less  concern  for  you. 
The  suspicion  is  most  unkind.  Have  we  lived  al 
most  a  score  of  years  in  the  closest  and  dearest 
conjugal  intimacy  to  so  little  purpose  that  on  the 
appearance  only  of  inattention  to  you,  and  which 
you  might  have  accounted  for  in  a  thousand  ways 
more  natural  and  more  probable,  you  should  pitch 
upon  that  single  motive  which  alone  is  injurious 
to  me? 

"  I  have  not,  I  own,  wrote  so  often  to  you  as  I 
wished  and  as  I  ought,  but  think  of  my  situation 
and  then  ask  your  heart  if  I  be  without  excuse.  We 
are  not,  my  dearest,  in  circumstances  most  favorable 
to  our  happiness;  but  let  us  not,  I  beseech  you,  idly 
make  them  worse  by  indulging  in  suspicions  and 
apprehensions  which  minds  in  distress  are  but  too 
apt  to  give  way  to.  Your  most  faithful  and  tender 
husband.  G.  W." 

Here  are  equally  tender  and  beautiful  words 
written  by  Edgar  Allan  Poe  to  his  wife  in  a  time 
of  great  trial: 

"My  Dear  Heart,  My  Dear  Virginia:  Our 
mother  will  explain  to  you  why  I  stayed  away  from 
you  this  night.  Of  my  last  great  disappointment 
I  should  have  lost  my  courage  but  for  you,  my  little 
darling  wife.  I  shall  be  with  you  to-morrow,  and 
be  assured  until  I  see  you,  I  will  keep  in  loving 


46  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

remembrance  your  last  words  and  your  fervent 
prayer.  May  God  grant  you  a  peaceful  summer 
with  your  devoted  EDGAR." 

Love  letters  are  a  literature  in  themselves,  and 
are  wholly  unlike  other  kinds  of  composition. 
Their  writers,  with  marvellous  delicacy,  place 
upon  paper  what  nothing  could  induce  them  to 
say  with  the  living  voice.  Though  the  writer 
be  no  poet,  yet  is  his  letter  crowded  with  fine  fig 
ures  of  rhetoric,  metaphors,  and  sentimental  and 
impassioned  bursts  of  feeling.  Not  infrequently 
the  composition  deepens  to  a  religious  intensity 
that  touches  the  thought  with  something  like 
inspiration.  Letters  of  every  kind  but  those  of 
love  go  out  of  fashion.  Telegraph  and  tele 
phone  have  rendered  unnecessary  much  of  our 
ordinary  correspondence.  Business  letters  are 
now  typewritten  by  clerks  and  scribes  of  one 
kind  or  another;  but  always  the  love  letter  is  a 
personal  matter.  No  woman  could  endure  a 
machine-made  love  letter.  The  charm  of  style, 
the  delicate  suggestiveness,  must  come  from  the 
very  hand  of  the  man  beloved. 

What  could  be  more  beautiful  than  these  im 
passioned  lines,  so  full  of  devotion,  which  Gari 
baldi  sent  to  his  wife  at  a  time  when  the  eyes 
of  all  Europe  were  upon  him,  and  when  every 
moment  was  precious: 

"  Your  face,  my  little  one,  is  with  me  every  hour, 
encouraging  and  solacing  me  when  my  heart  sinks 
low  with  fears  of  what  may  be.  I  thought  I  had 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  47 

tasted  all  the  sweetness  of  love's  cup  when  I  first 
embraced  my  Anita,  the  mother  of  my  children,  in 
a  silence  that  was  an  ecstasy;  but  now  I  know  that 
there  are  peaks  higher  than  the  Alps,  and  that  there 
is  a  heaven  higher  and  purer  and  sweeter  than  any 
I  first  explored  in  the  ardor  of  youth.  God  keep 
you,  my  darling,  and  restore  me  to  your  arms." 

Women  of  active  and  vigorous  mind  are 
usually  endowed  with  pronounced  sexual  in 
stincts,  and  are  warm-hearted  and  affectionate, 
though  there  are  such  exceptions  as  George 
Sand  and  certain  other  French  women  of  genius 
who,  though  irregular  in  their  social  relations, 
are  yet  incapable  of  anything  like  true  and  en 
during  love.  The  case  is  somewhat  different 
with  men.  It  is  strange  that  so  many  intellectual 
men  are  physically  incapacitated  for  married 
life.  Ruskin,  of  whom  mention  has  been  made, 
was  in  some  measure  an  illustration  of  what  we 
have  in  mind.  The  case  of  Carlyle  is  also  in 
teresting  in  this  connection.  Perhaps  Carlyle 
might  have  mended  matters  for  himself  and  for 
his  gifted  wife  as  well,  had  he  been  able  in  early 
married  life  to  place  the  hand  of  his  wife  in 
that  of  Edward  Irving,  who  surely  loved  her  and 
whose  life  might  have  been  very  different  had 
he  shared  it  with  her.  Cowper,  the  English 
poet,  was  beset  by  gentle  attentions  that  would 
have  been  withheld  had  the  real  state  of  the  case 
been  known.  And  even  John  Stuart  Mill,  whose 
noble  and  beautiful  love  is  celebrated  in  his  own 
account  of  his  life,  loved  with  a  love  that  was 


48  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

beyond  all  doubt  largely  of  the  soul.  Sterne 
declared  that  he  "must  always  have  a  Dulcinea 
dancing  in  his  head";  but  it  may  be  said  with 
truth  that  for  him  no  Dulcinea  ever  elsewhere 
long  wooed  him  with  "poetry  of  motion."  In 
his  cold  and  contracted  heart  there  was  scant 
space  for  terpsichorean  charm  of  any  kind. 
Sterne  could  write  of  love  as  few  men  could 
write,  but  of  the  thing  itself  he  knew  little. 
Balzac  has  been  regarded  as  a  man  of  loose  life, 
but  a  large  part  of  his  licentiousness  was  on  paper 
only.  His  libertinism,  like  that  of  Sterne,  was 
mostly  a  matter  of  pen  and  ink.  He  coveted  for 
himself,  it  would  seem,  what  most  men  call  shame, 
but  the  will  was  vastly  ahead  of  the  deed.  Yet 
for  all-in-all  his  life  was,  no  doubt,  far  from  be 
ing  what  good  men  and  women  like  to  contem 
plate.  To  writers  such  as  we  have  described  the 
dream  of  love  is  largely  of  the  nature  of  literary 
capital.  But  it  must  not  come  too  near  to  the 
man  himself,  nor  may  it  become  too  real.  Lan- 
dor  wrote  what  these  believed,  that  "absence  is 
the  invisible  and  incorporeal  mother  of  ideal 
beauty." 

The  violent  passion  of  youth,  when  "Nature, 
red  of  tooth  and  fierce  of  claw,  only  looking  to 
the  perpetuation  of  the  species,  blindly  drives 
men  and  women  to  each  other  with  irresistible 
force,"  to  employ  the  picturesque  and  strong 
words  of  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor  in  a  recent  maga 
zine  article,  is  what  we  commonly  call  love.  And 
yet  this  lower,  though  most  essential,  attraction 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  49 

of  the  sexes,  that  our  novelists  and  poets  have  so 
constantly  in  mind,  is  not  love  at  all  in  the  best 
sense  of  that  word.  Not  infrequently  the  term 
stands  for  simple  unadorned  lust  which,  though 
it  is  not  without  its  mission,  is  described  with 
propriety  only  in  medical  and  scientific  works. 
No  one  will  deny  to  George  Sand  rare  talent,  and 
we  may  say  genius,  for  her  gifts  of  insight  and 
expression  are  marvellous.  John  Stuart  Mill  was 
not  astray  when  he  wrote:  "As  a  specimen  of 
purely  artistic  excellence,  there  is  in  all  modern 
literature  nothing  superior  to  the  prose  of 
Madame  Sand,  whose  style  acts  upon  the  nervous 
system  like  a  symphony  of  Hayden  or  Mozart." 
Yet  in  the  last  analysis  the  stories  of  the  gifted 
author  of  "Indiana"  and  "Mauprat"  do  not  de 
scribe  love.  In  them  we  have  animal  appetite 
and  social  revolt,  but  we  look  in  vain  through 
their  pages  for  that  enduring  love  which  unites 
in  one  life — tender,  self-sacrificing,  and  true — 
the  single  destiny  of  one  man  and  the  one  woman 
of  his  choice.  A  few  short  tales  like  "Fadette" 
or  "Francois  the  Waif"  may  not  be  open  to 
criticism,  but  these  only  make  more  apparent  the 
truth  of  what  has  been  said  by  the  sharp  contrast 
which  they  present. 

There  was  a  singular  propriety  in  Madame 
Dudevant's  selection  of  a  masculine  name  for  her 
literary  personality.  She  played  a  man's  part. 
It  was  she  who  plotted  the  elopement,  and  cap 
tured  the  weak  and  willing  Alfred  de  Musset. 
Hers  was  all  the  courage  and  determination. 


50  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

With  him  she  shared  the  demand  for  social  and 
domestic  liberty,  but  hers  alone  was  the  uncom 
promising  purpose  and  the  strong  will.  Eliza 
beth  Barrett  Browning's  "Recognition,"  addressed 
to  George  Sand,  gives  us  the  close  association 
of  strong  will  with  womanly  passion  and  feeling; 
but  it  implies  a  conflict  between  the  feminine  na 
ture  and  the  assumed  masculine  role  of  which  we 
discover  no  suggestion  in  the  life  of  the  woman. 

"True  genius,  but  true  woman !  dost  deny 
Thy  woman's  nature  with  a  manly  scorn, 
And  break  away  the  gauds  and  armlets  worn 
By  weaker  women  in  captivity? 
Ah,   vain  denial!   that  revolted  cry 
Is  sobbed  in  by  a  woman's  voice  forlorn: 
Thy  woman's  hair,  my  sister,  all  unshorn, 
Floats  back  dishevelled  strength  in  agony, 
Disproving  thy  man's  name;  and  while  before 
The  world  thou  burnest  in  a  poet-fire, 
We  see  thy  woman-heart  beat  evermore 
Through  the  large  flame.     Beat  purer,  heart, 

and  higher, 

Till  God  unsex  thee  on  the  heavenly  shore, 
Where  unincarnate  spirits  purely  aspire." 

While  it  is  one  of  the  chief  purposes  of  mar 
riage  to  transmit  life  and  all  that  renders  life 
desirable  to  future  generations,  such  transmission 
is  by  no  means  the  only  end  and  intent  of  mar 
riage.  Doubtless  two  lives  may  be  sometimes 
united  to  the  advantage  of  both  where  there  is 
not  even  a  possibility  of  happiness,  but  it  will  be 
found  that  few  men  and  hardly  one  woman  will 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  51 

be  able  long  to  endure  the  bondage  of  so  un 
natural  a  union.  To  the  human  heart  happiness 
is  the  very  breath  of  life.  We  may  not  be  able 
to  say  with  Pope  that  it  is  "our  being's  end  and 
aim,"  but  experience  proves  it  to  be  an  essential 
element  in  well-being.  There  have  been  noble 
characters  matured  in  darkness,  but  for  one  such 
there  have  been  thousands  of  stunted  characters 
that  came  to  their  ruin  through  want  of  light. 
We  must  have  some  measure  of  happiness ;  with 
out  it  the  man  is  as  a  plant  deprived  of  light.  A 
happy  home  is  no  idle  dream  of  the  poet.  In 
every  age  and  land  the  heart  of  man  demands  it 
as  an  essential  and  supreme  good.  Domestic  hap 
piness  may  not  be  what  Cowper  calls  it,  "the 
only  bliss  of  Paradise  that  has  survived  the  fall," 
but  it  certainly  is  that  without  which  life  must 
lose  no  small  part  of  its  value.  Home  is,  or 
should  be,  the  place  of  confidence,  where  there 
are  no  masks  and  no  suspicions.  In  every  lan 
guage  under  the  sun  the  human  heart  voices 
through  some  proverb  its  conscious  need  of,  and 
its  delight  in,  the  domestic  circle.  It  is  said  of 
an  Englishman's  house,  "it  is  his  castle" ;  and 
again  they  tell  us  that  "home  is  always  home,  be 
it  never  so  homely."  The  French  proverb  runs, 
"To  every  bird  its  nest  is  fair."  The  German 
cries,  "East  and  West,  the  home  is  best."  In 
many  a  Spanish  rhyme  we  read  that  "the  smoke 
of  one's  own  house  is  better  than  the  fire  of  an 
other's." 

The     "Love     Letters     of     Mary     Wollstone- 


52  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

craft,"  addressed  to  Gilbert  Imlay,  show  us  how 
love  may  blind  at  once  both  mind  and  heart.  Im 
lay  was  a  worthless  voluptuary  and  a  cruel  senti 
mentalist  who  lived  for  the  hour,  with  no  thought 
of  either  responsibility  or  consequences.  He  had 
little  to  recommend  him  beyond  good  looks  and 
a  pleasing  presence.  Yet  a  woman  of  remark 
able  mind,  noble  and  affectionate  heart,  and  rare 
courage  could  so  deceive  herself  with  regard  to 
his  character  as  to  render  possible  the  astonish 
ing  letters  that  chronicle  at  once  her  shame  and 
his  worthlessness.  With  him  for  a  time  she  lived, 
and  with  him  she  would  have  lived  all  her  days 
had  he  been  able  to  return  in  even  a  limited  degree 
the  wealth  of  noble  passion  and  pure  love  which 
she  so  generously  bestowed  upon  him.  There 
were  no  legal  ties  to  make  him  responsible  for  her 
maintenance  and  for  that  of  her  child  and  his. 
Had  there  been  such  ties  her  proud  spirit  would 
have  scorned  a  support  reluctantly  rendered  by  a 
faithless  lover;  though  it  may  be  she  would  have 
thought  it  just  and  in  every  way  right  that  a 
father  should  provide  in  some  measure  at  least  for 
the  education  of  his  own  daughter.  When  Imlay 
began  to  forsake  the  noble  woman  whose  love  he 
had  won,  it  was  their  child  that  sustained  her  fail 
ing  confidence.  She  wrote  him  from  Paris,  where 
she  was  living  without  him: 

"Since  my  arrival  here,  I  have  found  the  German 
lady  of  whom  you  have  heard  me  speak.  Her  first 
child  died  in  the  month;  but  she  has  another  about 
the  age  of  my  Fanny,  a  fine  little  creature.  They 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  53 

are  still  but  contriving  to  live — earning  their  daily 
bread — yet,  though  they  are  but  just  above  pov 
erty,  I  envy  them.  She  is  a  tender,  affectionate 
mother — fatigued  even  by  her  attention.  However, 
she  has  an  affectionate  husband  in  her  turn,  to  ren 
der  her  care  light  and  to  share  her  pleasure. 

"I  will  own  to  you  that,  feeling  extreme  tender 
ness  for  my  little  girl,  I  grow  sad  very  often  when 
I  am  playing  with  her,  that  you  are  not  here  to 
observe  with  me  how  her  mind  unfolds  and  her  little 
heart  becomes  attached.  These  appear  to  me  to  be 
true  pleasures — and  still  you  suffer  them  to  escape 
you,  in  search  of  what  we  may  never  enjoy." 

Mary  Wollstonecraft  was  an  idealist,  but  the 
men  and  women  of  whom  this  world  has  heard 
much  and  for  whom  it  cherishes  the  largest  ad 
miration,  have  been  found,  not  among  the  unim 
aginative  and  matter-of-fact  toilers,  but  among 
the  sons  and  daughters  of  inspiration.  It  is  the 
"breath  of  their  inspiration"  that  is  "the  life  of 
each  generation."  The  Sacred  Writer  exclaims, 
"Where  there  is  no  vision,  the  people  perish." 
He  had  in  mind,  of  course,  things  spiritual,  but 
his  statement  holds  good  for  the  entire  world  of 
mental  and  ethical  realities.  The  sentimental 
side  of  life  is  as  real  as  is  the  commercial  or  the 
severely  scientific;  and  equally  real  is  the  ideal. 
The  materialist  will  have  no  universe  he  cannot 
put  into  a  crucible  and  melt  down,  yet  all  around 
him  is  the  beauty  of  another  world — a  beauty 
that  challenges  at  every  point  the  clear,  cold  and 
exacting  analysis  of  physical  science. 


54  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

Of  all  the  idealizing  elements  in  our  human 
economy  love  comes  first  and  lingers  longest. 
Certainly  for  the  woman  of  whom  we  are  now 
writing  it  wrought  a  marvellous  transformation, 
changing  common  dross  into  pure  gold;  making 
from  ordinary  material  a  model  of  everything 
noble  and  of  real  worth  in  the  possibilities  of  our 
human  nature.  Even  positive  proof  of  Imlay's 
infidelity  led  her  not  so  much  to  blame  him  as  to 
censure  her  own  conduct.  Her  letters  of  love 
addressed  to  him  are  not  unlike  the  letters  of 
Heloise  in  their  self-effacing  devotion. 

So  has  it  been  with  the  daughters  of  Eve  from 
the  very  beginning  of  time ;  and  so,  no  doubt,  will 
it  be  so  long  as  life  endures.  It  was  this  same 
wonder-working  love  that  made  Bonnie  Prince 
Charlie  seem  to  the  heart  of  Louise  of  Stolberg 
so  worthy  a  man  when  certainly  he  was  nothing 
of  the  kind.  And  yet,  perhaps,  she  was  not  so 
greatly  deceived  after  all;  for  it  was  with  little 
or  no  difficulty  that  she  later  installed  in  her  af 
fections  the  brilliant  but  austere  Alfieri.  And  no 
sooner  was  the  poet  gone  from  our  earth  than  a 
sweet-tempered  and  lovable  painter  whose  pictures 
no  one  will  ever  greatly  covet  stepped  with  proud 
assurance  into  that  poet's  place.  The  Countess 
of  Albany  did  not  break  her  heart  over  any  of 
these.  The  Bonnie  Prince  was  fifty-two  and  she 
was  but  twenty  when  the  priest  united  them  in  a 
marriage  with  which  Heaven  had  little  to  do. 
The  marriage  has  been  described  as  that  of  "a 
golden  beauty  with  hazel  eyes  and  a  wild-rose 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  55 

skin"  to  "a  gaunt,  elderly  man  of  red,  bloated 
face,  made  redder  by  the  contrast  of  a  white 
wig  and  the  reflection  from  a  crimson  silk  suit 
crossed  with  the  Ribbon  of  the  Garter."  An 
older  description  of  the  Prince  represents  him  as 
"dull,  thick,  silent-looking  about  the  lips  wrhich 
were  purplish,  with  pale-blue  eyes  tending  to  a 
watery  greyness,  and  having  something  inex 
pressibly  sad,  gloomy,  helpless,  vacant  and  debased 
in  the  whole  face."  Vernon  Lee  vouches  for  the 
later  description,  which  is  taken  from  a  crayon 
portrait  of  the  time  and,  no  doubt,  from  life. 
The  husband  was  jealous  of  his  lovely  wife  of 
"golden  beauty,"  and  not  without  cause.  It  is 
not  in  the  least  surprising  that  when  she  awoke 
in  the  morning  and  found  by  her  side  a  man 
drunk  as  only  a  Scotchman  can  be,  she  wished 
for  a  very  different  awakening  and  for  the  sweet 
embrace  of  another  whose  name,  it  may  be,  she 
even  then  knew  only  too  well.  The  husband's 
savage  jealousy  became  more  exacting.  Her 
room  could  be  entered  only  through  his,  and  he 
was  insolent  and  vulgar  enough  to  declare  that 
he  was  "resolved  that  the  succession  should  not  be 
dubious."  That  she  concerned  herself  little  about 
his  very  inconsequent  succession  the  sequel  of  her 
life  makes  clear.  The  fortunes  of  the  House  of 
Stuart  became  odious  in  her  sight.  Insult  upon 
insult,  crowned  by  a  drunken  attempt  upon  her 
unhappy  life,  broke  the  last  link.1 

i  "The  Stuarts  must  not  be  allowed  to  die  out !"  was  the 
cry   of  the   French   Ministry   towards   1772.     That   House 


56  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

A  supreme  affection  means  for  most  of  us  one 
true  marriage,  and  one  only.  In  this  lies  the 
secret  of  monogamy.  Perhaps  it  is  not  quite 
true,  though  we  have  Lord  Beaconsfield's  word 
for  it,  that  "to  the  man  in  love,  the  thought  of 
another  woman  is  uninteresting,  if  not  re 
pulsive";  but  it  certainly  is  true  that  a  supreme 
affection  which  is  the  only  right  foundation  for 
marriage  means  as  well  an  exclusive  affection. 
Love  is  the  fire  in  this  human  life  of  ours  whereat 
we  warm  our  hearts,  and  so  give  them  cheer  in  a 
world  where  there  are  so  many  things  to  distress 
and  affright.  Thus,  in  finer  words,  Mrs.  Brown 
ing  expresses  this  same  thought : 

"Yet  love,  mere  love,  is  beautiful  indeed, 
And  worthy  of  acceptation.     Fire  is  bright, 
Let  temple  burn,  or  flax !     An  equal  light 
Leaps  in  the  flame  from  cedar-plank  or  weed. 
And  love  is  fire;  and  when  I  say  at  need, 
/  love  thee     .     .     .     mark     ...     I  love  iheel 

in  thy  sight 

I  stand  transfigured,  glorified  aright, 
With  conscience  of  the  new  rays  that  proceed 

could  be  of  service  to  France,  for  against  England  a  Pre 
tender  would  be  a  priceless  weapon.  But  unless  Charles 
Edward  could  be  induced  to  marry,  that  House  would 
most  certainly  die,  for  his  brother  had  become  a  priest 
when  he  was  father  only  of  an  illegitimate  daughter. 
Charles  Edward  had  always  refused  to  marry,  so  a  pen 
sion  of  forty  thousand  crowns  was  offered,  and  at  once 
he  married  Louise,  the  nineteen-year-old  daughter  of 
Prince  Gustavus  Adolphus  of  Stolberg-Oedern,  Prince  of 
the  Empire,  who  was  killed  in  the  battle  of  Leuthen. 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  57 

Out  of  my  face  toward  thine.     There's  nothing 

low 

In  love,  when  love  the  lowest;  meanest  creatures 
Who  love  God,  God  accepts  while  loving  so; 
And  what  I  feel  across  the  inferior  features 
Of  what  I  am,  doth  flash  itself,  and  show 
How  that  great  work  of  Love  enhances  Nature's." 

The  morganatic  marriage  is  defined  as  a  mar 
riage  in  which  one  of  the  contracting  persons  is 
of  a  much  higher  rank  than  is  the  other,  and  in 
which  it  is  agreed  that  the  person  of  humbler 
station  shall  make  no  claim  for  himself  or  her 
self  or  for  the  children  of  such  marriage  upon 
the  title,  standing,  or  property  of  the  person  of 
more  exalted  rank.  Thus  defined,  the  mor 
ganatic  marriage,  though  it  may  be  a  contemptible 
and  unjust  depriving  of  an  honest  wife  of  her 
natural  rights  and  dignity  as  wife  and  a  wronging 
of  the  children,  is  not  of  necessity  what  is  in 
common  phrase  immoral.  But  the  morganatic 
marriage  is  not  infrequently  a  temporary  union. 
The  Prince,  when  the  time  arrives  for  him  to 
enter  upon  the  responsibility  and  dignity  of  sov 
ereignty,  must  repudiate  his  morganatic  family 
and  marry  a  woman  of  a  rank  approaching  his 
own.  The  first  marriage  (call  it  morganatic  or 
what  you  will)  is  a  true  and  real  marriage,  but 
the  second  is  bigamous.  It  is  a  pitiful  thing  that 
a  sovereign  should  be  called  upon  to  repudiate 
an  affectionate  wife,  and  children  that  look  to 
him  for  name  and  place,  in  order  that  he  may  rule 


58  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

over  a  nation  that  calls  itself  Christian.  That 
adultery  should  be  trusted  to  provide  an  heir  for 
the  throne  where  a  pure  and  honest  marriage  is 
repudiated  is  a  marvellous  thing  in  this  late  age 
of  the  world's  history.  Even  still  more  aston 
ishing  is  the  fact  that  distinguished  prelates  in 
a  Christian  church  who  insist  upon  the  sacredness 
of  the  seventh  commandment  account  their  sov 
ereign  so  far  superior  to  their  God  that  royalty 
may  be  allowed  to  set  aside  the  sacred  command 
without  rebuke.  These  prelates  assist  at  the  cor 
onation,  and  one  of  their  number  is,  by  virtue  of 
his  station,  expected  to  place  the  crown  upon  the 
royal  head. 

The  Archduke  Francis,  who  will,  in  all  proba 
bility,  become  the  Emperor  of  Austria  before 
many  years,  is  united  in  morganatic  marriage 
with  the  Countess  Sophie  Chotek  de  Chotkowa. 
She  is  represented  as  a  very  plain  woman,  but  as 
a  woman  of  great  accomplishments  and  wonderful 
tact.  A  recent  author  described  her  as  "sallow 
and  scrawny,"  but  he  admitted  her  remarkable 
ability.  She  it  was  who  changed  the  rollicking 
and  roistering  Prince  into  a  serious,  shrewd,  and 
subtle  man — into  the  hope  of  Austria.  Mr. 
Alexander  Powell,  in  the  Travel  Magazine  for 
June,  1910,  has  this  to  say  of  the  marvellous 
influence  of  this  wonderful  woman  over  the  com 
ing  ruler  of  Austria: 

"It  was  a  reformed  rake  who  knelt  on  the  prie 
dieux  in  the  little  Reichstadt  chapel  to  take  the 
marriage  vows.  It  was  the  subtlest  diplomat  in 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  59 

Europe  who  rose  to  take  his  place  in  the  shadows 
of  the  Imperial  throne,  there  to  pull  the  strings 
which  control  the  utterances  of  statesmen,  the  move 
ments  of  fleets  and  armies  and  the  policies  of  na 
tions.  Already  he  has  repainted  the  map  of  South 
eastern  Europe  and  set  every  Continental  chancellery 
in  an  uproar.  The  empire  is  under  his  thumb  as 
completely  as  Egypt  was  under  that  of  Lord  Cro- 
mer.  He  it  was  who  tore  up  the  Treaty  of  Berlin 
and,  blowing  the  pieces  in  the  faces  of  the  signatory 
Powers,  coolly  annexed  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  to 
the  empire.  It  was  he  who  backed  up  Ferdinand 
of  Bulgaria  in  his  successful  revolt  against  Ottoman 
rule  and  he  who  stiffened  the  backbone  of  Austria 
in  its  belligerent  reception  of  the  Russian  protests." 

It  is  represented  that  the  Archduke  is  devoted 
to  his  wife  and  children,  and  that  he  will  never 
under  any  circumstances  desert  them.  But  we 
shall  see  of  what  stuff  he  is  made  when  he  is  called 
to  the  sovereignty  of  his  great  country. 

The  Sacred  Writer  associates  the  vision  of 
God  with  purity  of  heart  in  that  wonderful  beati 
tude,  "Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall 
see  God."  Under  the  shadow  of  so  gracious  a 
promise  there  has  grown  up  that  noxious  plant 
of  priestly  sowing  known  as  Sacerdotal  Celibacy. 
There  is  more  in  the  name  than  is  indicated,  for 
the  associating  of  sexual  life  with  uncleanness  is 
responsible  for  religious  virgins  and  various  kinds 
of  unwholesome  saints.  These,  and  more  like 
them,  are  men  and  women  of  polluted  minds  and 
hearts;  they  have  no  knowledge  of  the  Divine 


60  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

Vision  that  comes  with  love  for  God  and  a  clean 
life.  It  was  Gregory  the  Great  who  gave  the 
Christian  priesthood  its  first  serious  impulse  in 
the  direction  of  celibacy  and  who  crowned  vir 
ginity  as  a  thing  in  itself  peculiarly  pleasing  to 
a  holy  God.  And  this  he  did  with  the  writings 
of  the  Apostle  Paul  open  before  him.  In  that 
Apostle's  First  Epistle  to  Timothy  we  read  that 
a  Bishop  must  be  "the  husband  of  one  wife" — 
that  is  to  say,  "of  but  one  wife,"  for  in  his  day 
polygamy  was  common.  This  same  Apostle 
warned  the  church  that  in  the  latter  times  seduc 
ing  spirits  should  speak  "lies  in  hypocrisy,  having 
their  consciences  seared  with  a  hot  iron,  for 
bidding  to  marry."  There  had  been  something 
of  the  kind  among  pagan  peoples,  and  all  the 
more  readily,  therefore,  did  the  church,  which  in 
many  places  had  directly  succeeded  heathenism, 
accommodate  itself  to  the  views  and  requirements 
of  Gregory  the  Great  and  his  coadjutors.  But, 
nevertheless,  celibacy  of  the  clergy  came  very 
gradually.  It  was  opposed  to  human  nature,  for 
everywhere  and  at  all  times  men  and  women  dis 
cover  in  each  other  the  source  of  a  common  felic 
ity.  From  the  union  of  the  sexes  springs  not 
only  life  itself,  but  that  which  gives  to  life  all 
that  is  noblest  and  purest. 

Celibacy  was  not  actually  imposed  upon  the  clergy 
as  a  binding  obligation  before  the  time  of  Pope 
Hildebrand;  and  he,  observing  its  harmful  effect 
on  the  church,  contemplated  revoking  his  own  or 
der.  His  successors,  however,  insisted  upon  celi- 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  61 

bacy,  and  as  a  natural  consequence  impurity  soon 
prevailed.  Those  among  the  clergy  who  aspired 
to  sacred  honors  embraced  at  once  the  single  life, 
devoid  of  those  domestic  cares  and  duties  that 
interfere  with  the  pursuit  of  such  rewards  as  are 
sought  after  by  personal  ambition.  The  power 
of  the  clergy  was  greatly  increased.  Nuns  re 
ceived  the  same  veneration  that  had  once  clothed 
Vestals  with  sacred  glory  in  the  ardent  imagina 
tion  of  ignorant  people  to  whom  nuns  and  other 
religious  persons  were  often  called  to  minister, 
and  to  whom  they  did  minister  with  a  self-abne 
gation  and  devotion  strangely  at  variance  with 
the  greed  of  place  and  power  so  common  at  that 
time  in  religious  circles.  Everywhere  there  was 
a  lowering  of  the  standard  of  sexual  morality, 
and  a  development  of  most  degrading  semi-re 
ligious  pruriency.  In  the  "Dialogues"  of  Greg 
ory  the  Great,  Ursinus,  a  priest,  is  represented 
as  having  lived  an  unnatural  life ;  for  forty  years 
he  dwelt  with  his  wife  as  a  brother  might  properly 
live  with  a  sister,  abstaining  during  the  entire 
time  from  the  nearer  intimacy  of  married  life. 
At  last,  when  he  was  nigh  unto  death,  his  wife, 
moved  by  affection  for  one  who  was  her  husband 
in  little  else  than  name,  and  not  being  certain  that 
he  was  still  alive,  placed  her  hand  near  his  per 
son.  Instantly  he  shrank  from  her  touch,  ex 
claiming,  "Get  hence,  woman ! — a  little  fire  re 
mains — away  with  the  straw!"  Of  Leo  I.  this 
monstrous  falsehood  is  told:  A  woman,  upon  a 
certain  occasion,  kissed  his  hand,  and  he  was  so 


62  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

inflamed  by  the  touch  of  her  lips  that,  to  punish 
himself,  he  deliberately  cut  the  hand  off. 

Instances  of  emasculation  are  very  common  in 
the  chronicles  of  the  saints.  Origen  submitted 
to  mutilation,  and  he  was  sure  he  had  Divine 
authority  for  his  act.  He  found  in  the  Gospel 
according  to  Matthew  these  words  over  which  he 
brooded  long,  "There  be  eunuchs  which  have  made 
themselves  eunuchs  for  the  kingdom  of  Heaven's 
sake."  Origen  was  a  venerable  father  of  the 
Church,  a  theologian,  and  a  philosopher,  and  the 
author  of  valuable  Commentaries  on  the  Scrip 
tures.  Why  should  not  his  example  be  imitated? 
It  was  imitated,  not  only  because  religion  seemed 
to  approve,  but  because  it  fell  in  with  a  spirit  of 
luxury  as  vile  as  it  was  sentimentally  pious.  Chil 
dren  were  castrated  to  qualify  them  for  singing 
in  the  Papal  Choir.  Castrato  and  musico  del 
Papa  were,  in  the  minds  of  the  common  people, 
the  same  thing.  "Because  of  their  sacred 
wounds,"  said  a  wise  doctor,  "these  blessed  ones 
sing  like  the  angels  in  Heaven."  Later  the  art 
of  castration  was  carried  to  perfection.  Voltaire 
tells  us  that  in  his  day  the  following  words  were 
to  be  seen  at  Naples  over  the  doors  of  certain 
barbers,  "Qui  fi  castrano  maravigliosamente  i 
puti" — "Here  boys  are  castrated  in  a  most  ad 
mirable  manner."  This  was  certainly  an  improve 
ment  upon  the  self-castration  of  Origen.  The 
fine  soprano  solos  which  charm  the  worshipers  in 
Italian  churches  are  sung  by  eunuchs.  The  op 
era-singer  Velluti,  whose  musical  performances 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  63 

delighted  all  Europe,  was,  when  a  child,  castrated 
for  the  choir  of  the  Papal  Chapel  at  Rome. 
Sometimes  the  devil  was  defeated  in  his  machina 
tions,  but  not  always. 

Evil  spirits  not  infrequently  appeared  in  the 
form  and  with  the  face  of  a  woman.  Such 
appearances  were  most  deadly.  When  St. 
Pachomius  and  St.  Palaemon  were  convers 
ing  together  in  the  desert,  a  young  monk, 
wild  with  anguish  and  terror,  ran  to  them,  and, 
falling  down  at  their  feet,  declared  that  a  woman 
of  surpassing  beauty  had  entered  his  cell  and 
seduced  him,  after  which  she  had  miraculously 
vanished,  leaving  him  well  nigh  dead  upon  the 
ground.  Having  told  his  tale  of  woe,  he  ran 
out  into  the  desert  and  was  seen  no  more.  An 
other  ending  of  the  story  is  that  the  monk  reached 
the  next  village,  where  he  leaped  into  the  open 
furnace  connected  with  the  public  baths,  and  so 
perished.  It  was  the  old  story,  "The  woman 
whom  thou  gavest  to  be  with  me,  she  gave  me  of 
the  tree,  and  I  did  eat."  The  anchorites,  erem 
ites,  recluses  and  hermits  of  the  ages  of  credulity 
lived  an  unnatural  life  of  repression,  and  woman, 
that  should  have  provided  the  sweetest  compan 
ionship,  furnished  temptation  only.  The  re 
pression  revenged  itself  upon  these  unclean  as 
pirants  for  a  spurious  holiness.  There  is  in 
Lecky's  "History  of  European  Morals"  an  elo 
quent  and  familiar  passage  that  should  not  be 
passed  over  in  treating  of  this  subject: 


64  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

"With  such  men,  living  such  a  life,  visions  and 
miracles  were  necessarily  habitual.  All  the  ele 
ments  of  hallucination  were  there.  Ignorant  and 
superstitious,  believing  as  a  matter  of  religious  con 
viction  that  countless  demons  filled  the  air,  at 
tributing  every  fluctuation  of  his  own  temperament 
and  every  exceptional  phenomenon  in  surrounding 
nature  to  spiritual  agency;  delirious  too,  from  soli 
tude  and  long-continued  austerities,  the  hermit  soon 
mistook  for  palpable  realities  the  phantoms  of  his 
brain.  In  the  ghastly  gloom  of  the  sepulchre, 
where,  amid  mouldering  corpses,  he  took  up  his 
abode;  in  the  long  hours  of  the  night  of  penance, 
when  the  desert  wind  sobbed  around  his  lonely  cell, 
and  the  cries  of  wild  beasts  were  borne  upon  his 
ear, — visible  forms  of  lust  or  terror  appeared  to 
haunt  him,  and  strange  dramas  were  enacted  by 
those  who  were  contending  for  his  soul.  An 
imagination  strained  to  the  utmost  limit,  acting  upon 
a  frame  attenuated  and  diseased  by  macerations, 
produced  bewildering  psychological  phenomena, 
paroxysms  of  conflicting  passions,  sudden  alterna 
tions  of  joy  and  anguish,  which  he  regarded  as 
manifestly  supernatural.  Sometimes,  in  the  very 
ecstasy  of  his  devotion,  the  memory  of  old  scenes 
would  crowd  upon  his  mind.  The  shady  groves 
and  soft  voluptuous  gardens  of  his  native  city  would 
arise,  and,  kneeling  alone  upon  the  burning  sand, 
he  seemed  to  see  around  him  the  fair  groups  of 
dancing-girls,  on  whose  warm,  undulating  limbs  and 
wanton  smiles  his  youthful  eyes  had  too  fondly 
dwelt.  Sometimes  his  temptation  sprang  from  re 
membered  sounds.  The  sweet  licentious  songs  of 
other  days  came  floating  on  his  ears,  and  his  heart 
was  thrilled  with  the  passions  of  the  past." 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  65 

The  life  these  men  lived  confused  in  their  minds 
all  distinction  between  purity  and  impurity. 
Shakspeare  knew  well  the  difference: 

"Love  comforteth  like  sunshine  after  rain, 
But  lust's  effect  is  tempest  after  sun; 
Love's  gentle  spring  doth  always  fresh  remain; 
Lust's  winter  comes  ere  summer  half  be  done; 
Love  surfeits  not,  lust  like  a  glutton  dies; 
Love  is  all  truth,  lust  full  of  forged  lies !" 

Venus  and  Adonis. 

Alp  and  Andes,  the  Rocky  Mountains  of  North 
America  and  the  Mountains  of  the  Moon  that  are 
not  in  the  moon  at  all,  but  in  the  tropical  forests 
of  Africa,  from  which  they  extend  to  the  arid 
wastes  of  the  Abyssinian  Desert,  have  been  pushed 
up  from  the  central  fires  in  the  heart  of  the  earth. 
So  it  is  with  our  human  nature.  From  the  brutal 
and  ferocious  passions  of  wild  animals  we  have 
come  at  length  to  the  white  snow-fields  of  a  pure 
love  that,  seeing  God,  sees  also  what  is  Godlike 
in  man,  who  is  described  as  "the  image  of  God." 
The  most  exalted  love  of  which  we  are  capable 
is  rooted  in  something  we  do  not  like  to  contem 
plate.  But  is  the  pure  heart  less  pure  or  less 
worthy  of  regard  because  of  its  mean  beginning? 
It  was  Professor  Huxley  who  said  that  speech 
was  only  so  much  transmuted  mutton.  Are  then 
the  songs  of  all  the  great  singers  who  have 
charmed  the  world  nothing  but  a  little  muscular 
tissue?  Are  all  our  virtues  only  transfigured 
vices?  Does  the  law  of  the  correlation  of  forces 


66  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

apply  as  well  to  things  spiritual?  There  have 
been  those  who  maintained  that  the  devout  prayer 
of  a  gentle  mother  might  be  expressed  in  chemical 
terms  were  our  instruments  and  processes  suffi 
ciently  fine;  but  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  the 
beautiful  poems,  great  paintings,  and  imperish 
able  books  are  merely  transmuted  physical  force 
and  nothing  more.  It  is  true  that  under  all  the 
glory  of  the  spiritual  there  is  a  coarse  material, 
but  the  two  are  not  the  same.  Love  unites  the 
pure  in  heart,  and  to  them  there  comes  the  won 
derful  vision  of  God  that  had  its  rise,  no  doubt, 
through  long  ages  of  development,  from  those 
animal  fires  that  underlie  the  entire  world  of 
living  creatures;  but  snow-fields  and  central  fires 
are  not  one  and  the  same  thing.  A  great  change 
has  come  through  the  line  of  development,  and 
the  beast  has  in  large  measure  retired;  the  man 
stands  forth,  the  majestic  creature  he  not  only 
is,  but  is  yet  to  become.  There  is  something 
more  than  the  correlation  of  forces  in  the  making 
of  Homer,  Euclid,  Dante,  Luther,  and  Michael 
Angelo.  The  persistence,  transmutability,  and 
indestructibility  of  force  will  not  fully  explain 
these.  Above  the  brutal  passion  that  serves  to 
perpetuate  race  and  species,  and  that  is  sometimes 
cruel,  and  always  selfish,  there  rises  as  the  snowy 
mountain  above  the  hot  earth  from  which  it 
springs,  a  love  that,  if  not  wholly  unselfish,  is  yet 
noble,  pure,  and  gentle  when  compared  with  its 
unattractive  starting-place.  Between  these  are 
many  grades  ranging  all  the  way  from  animal 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  67 

appetite  to  manly  devotion  and  womanly  affec 
tion.  And  above  these  again  tower  other  heights 
that  few  tread,  but  that  show  to  all  how  great  are 
the  possibilities  of  our  human  nature.  There  are 
angelic  loves  and  loves  celestial  that  lead  up  to 
a  love  no  child  of  earth  can  ever  fully  under 
stand,  because  it  is  Divine.  "The  glory  of  the 
celestial  is  one,  and  the  glory  of  the  terrestrial 
is  another."  There  is  a  love  that  remakes  the 
man,  changing  him  into  "the  same  image  from 
glory  unto  glory,  even  as  by  the  Spirit  of  the 
Lord,"  until  all  the  old  is  consumed  and  "the  face 
shines  as  the  sun  and  the  raiment  is  white  as  the 
light."  Beyond  this  no  man  may  go,  for  the 
solitary  heights,  though  they  look  down  in  bless 
ing,  invite  not  our  human  approach. 

The  dying  Bunsen,  looking  into  the  eyes  of 
his  wife,  who  was  bending  over  him,  said,  "In  thy 
face  I  have  seen  the  Eternal !"  There  are  natures 
so  rare  and  pure  that  they  scarcely  cloud  the 
heavenly  love  that  transfigures  them.  Through 
characters  thus  transparent  we  behold  God.  The 
dying  Bunsen  was  not  alone.  Dr.  Abbot  inscribed 
this  same  vision  of  the  heart  upon  the  stone  that 
marked  his  wife's  grave.  Mrs.  Browning  knew 
it  well,  and  who  has  better  described  it  than  she 
in  these  lines  from  "Aurora  Leigh": 

"In  that  great  square  of  the  Santissima, 
There  drifted  past  him  (scarcely  marked  enough 
To  move  his  comfortable  island-scorn), 
A  train  of  priestly  banners,  cross  and  psalm, 


68  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

The  white-veiled,  rose-crowned  maidens   holding 

up 

Tall  tapers,  weighty  for  such  mists,  aslant 
To  the  blue  luminous  tremor  of  the  air, 
And  letting  drop  the  white  wax  as  they  went 
To  eat  the  bishop's  wafer  at  the  church; 
From  which  long  trail  of  chanting  priests  and 

girls 

A  face  flashed  like  a  cymbal  on  his  face, 
And  shook  with  silent  clangor  brain  and  heart, 
Transfiguring  him  to  music.     Thus,  even  thus 
He  too  received  his  sacramental  gift 
With  eucharistic  meanings;  for  he  loved." 

The  supreme  love  of  husband  and  wife,  per 
fectly  mated  or  nearly  so,  is  in  the  nature  of 
things  religious ;  there  is  within  it  a  spiritual  ele 
ment.  The  wafer  of  Divine  Communion  is  not 
far  removed  from  the  "sacramental  gift"  of  love. 
To  this  great  truth  other  gifted  ones  beside  Bun- 
sen  bear  witness.  Edwards  saw  it  as  a  vision  of 
transcendent  spiritual  beauty  in  the  face  of  Sarah 
Pierrepont.  The  Girondist  Roland,  surrounded 
by  the  fierce  political  convulsions  of  his  age,  be 
held  it  in  the  gaze  of  Jeanne  Philipon.  Every 
where  and  always  the  same  spiritual  yet  passionate 
love  clothes  itself  in  the  same  spiritual  beauty. 

Parkman  describes  certain  Indians  who  go 
through  the  form  of  marriage  with  their  fish-nets. 
An  Oriental  writer  describes  the  marriage  of  a 
Chinese  lady  to  a  beautiful  vase  covered  with  red 
flowers.  The  vase  was  a  substitute  for  the  son 
of  a  wealthy  mandarin  to  whom  she  had  been 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  69 

engaged,  and  who  died  just  before  the  contem 
plated  marriage.  She  had  vowed  that  she  would 
never  wed  another  man ;  and  so,  to  keep  her  vow, 
she  determined  to  "put  herself  out  of  the  market" 
by  marrying  a  piece  of  pottery.  It  is  a  custom 
with  the  Khatris,  when  a  man  has  lost  his  second 
wife,  to  marry  an  Ak  plant,  so  that  when  he  takes 
another  woman  for  his  wife  she  may  not  die. 
These  marriages  are  only  methods  of  evading  real 
marriage,  for  though  some  of  the  persons  thus 
married  do  marry  again,  the  most  of  them  do  not, 
and  all  of  them  are  excused,  if  they  so  wish,  from 
any  future  alliance.  Even  the  man  who  marries 
the  Ak  plant  that  a  third  wife  may  not  die,  not 
infrequently  neglects  to  find  for  himself  the  third 
wife. 

It  may  be  love  between  the  sexes,  especially  in 
early  life,  has  come  to  have  in  some  measure  a 
pathological  cast  because  of  the  peculiar  phe 
nomena  which  it  exhibits — its  effect  upon  appe 
tite,  sleep,  and  occupation,  as  well  as  upon  the 
voice  and  the  senses.  There  is  a  somewhat  hu 
morous  account  of  a  young  scion  of  nobility  in 
the  England  of  other  days  whose  various  pas 
sions  so  amused  his  tutor  that  that  gentleman 
made,  according  to  current  tradition,  a  somewhat 
facetious  report  of  them  in  their  influence  upon 
the  young  man's  health,  to  the  mother.  The 
young  nobleman  was  the  Duke  of  Hamilton,  and 
his  tutor  was  a  certain  Dr.  Moore,  of  whom  we 
should  never  have  known  anything  but  for  the 
loves  of  this  most  susceptible  young  Duke.  The 


70  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

Duke  was  eighteen  and  had  just  fallen  a  victim 
to  a  pair  of  black  eyes  that  unfortunately  be 
longed  to  a  married  lady.  Dr.  Moore  made  this 
most  interesting  report  to  the  young  man's 
mother : 

"This  is  the  third  passion  the  duke  has  had  since 
we  crossed  the  sea.  His  various  passions  generally 
affect  his  appetite,  and  I  can  make  a  pretty  good 
guess  at  the  height  of  his  love  by  the  victuals  he 
refuses  to  eat.  A  slight  touch  of  love  puts  him 
immediately  from  legumes  and  all  kinds  of  jardi- 
nage.  If  it  rises  a  degree  higher  he  turns  up  his 
nose  at  fricassees  and  ragouts.  Another  degree 
and  he  will  rather  go  to  bed  supperless  than  taste 
plain  roasted  veal  or  poulets  of  any  sort.  This  is 
the  utmost  length  to  which  his  passion  has  ever 
come  hitherto,  for  when  he  was  at  the  court  with 
Mile.  Marchenville,  though  she  put  him  entirely 
from  greens,  ragouts  and  veal,  yet  she  made  no  im 
pression  on  his  roast  beef  or  mutton  appetite.  He 
fed  plentifully  upon  these  in  spite  of  her  charms. 
I  intend  to  make  a  thermometer  for  the  duke's  pas 
sion  with  four  degrees — (1)  greens,  (2)  fricassees 
and  ragouts,  (3)  roast  veal  and  fowls,  (4)  plain 
roast  mutton  or  beef — and  if  ever  the  mercury 
mounts  as  high  as  the  last  I  shall  think  the  case 
alarming." 

Mr.  Roosevelt  and  certain  other  ill-informed 
agitators  have  protested  in  season  and  out  of 
season  against  an  imaginary  catastrophe  which 
has  received  the  name  of  "race  suicide."  It  is 
represented  that  the  intentional  sterility  of  mod- 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  71 

ern  marriage  endangers  the  continuance,  at  least 
in  some  parts  of  our  world,  of  the  human  race. 
This  protest  against  the  circumscribing  of  the 
domestic  circle  is  seconded  by  military  authorities 
because  they  find  it  difficult  where  the  family  is 
small  to  obtain  a  sufficient  number  of  young  men 
for  the  army  and  for  the  navy.  The  census  re 
turns  for  1900  show  the  population  of  France  to 
be  about  38,600,000,  which  is  an  increase  of  only 
330,000  over  1896.  To  this  small  increase  Paris 
and  its  suburbs  gives  290,000,  the  greater  part 
of  which  number  is  due  to  foreign  immigrants, 
so  that  the  rest  of  France  gives  an  increase  of 
only  40,000.  This  result  when  compared  with 
the  returns  from  England,  Austria,  Italy,  and 
especially  Germany,  furnishes  some  cause  for  anx 
iety. 

There  is,  however,  another  side  to  the  so-called 
"race  suicide"  question.  Mothers  do  not  wish 
to  feed  the  military  glory  of  France,  nor  do  they 
desire  to  feed  that  of  any  other  nation  with  their 
own  sons.  The  needs  of  the  army  and  of  the 
navy  do  not  appeal  to  them  under  the  circum 
stances  named.  The  very  fact  that  boys  are 
wanted  for  such  uses  seems  to  them  to  furnish 
an  excellent  reason  why  boys  should  be  hard  to 
obtain.  The  old  cry  of  patriotism  with  which 
the  authorities  were  wont  to  fool  the  unwary  has 
lost  much  of  its  power.  Large  families  are  not 
so  desirable  as  are  good  ones ;  and  good  families 
are  not  so  likely  to  be  large.  Woman's  function 
is  not  simply  to  bear  children,  but  also  to  rear 


72  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

them;  and  that  not  as  food  for  powder,  but  as 
the  supporters  of  society  and  good  government. 
I  doubt  if  the  world  would  be  in  any  wise  injured 
were  no  children  to  be  born  during  the  next 
three  years.  The  earth  is  well  populated  in  all 
those  portions  where  life  is  possible  without  great 
hardship.  The  increased  cost  of  living  has  a  de 
cided  tendency  to  restrict  the  size  and  open-hand- 
edness  of  the  family.  Comparatively  few  men 
can  afford  to  marry  in  early  life  unless  the  bride 
brings  a  generous  bestowment  in  money,  and  so 
it  has  come  to  pass  that  the  dowry  is  an  actual 
necessity.  This  necessity,  of  course,  increases 
with  the  increasing  size  of  the  family. 

This  unnatural  state  of  things  introduces  no 
small  amount  of  wrong  thinking  and  feeling. 
The  sacredness  of  the  family  is  in  a  measure  de 
stroyed.  Children  are  not  welcomed  where  they 
should  be  anticipated  with  maternal  affection.  In 
France  matrimonial  sterilization  is  not  unpopu 
lar.  Zola  tells  his  readers,  in  "Fecondite,"  that 
there  are  twenty  thousand  women  in  France  who 
for  purposes  of  their  own  have  submitted  to  be 
unsexed.  Statements  to  the  same  effect  are  made 
by  Leon  Daudet  in  "Les  Morticoles,"  and  by 
Camille  Pert  in  "Les  Floriferes."  These  figures 
may  be  exaggerated,  but  the  number  is  beyond 
all  question  large.  The  operation  is  held  in  fa 
vor  not  only  because  some  women  wish  to  escape 
the  peril  and  burden  of  motherhood,  but  because 
in  many  cases  the  money  is  not  sufficient  for  the 
requirements  of  a  large  family.  A  question  arises 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  73 

in  this  connection  as  to  the  right  of  parents  to 
bring  children  into  the  world  where  there  can  be 
little  or  no  hope  of  providing  for  them. 

Havelock  Ellis,  in  his  "Sex  in  Relation  to  So 
ciety,"  calls  attention  to  the  resemblance  between 
some  of  the  hetairce  and  many  of  the  leaders  in 
the  "Woman's  Rights  Movement"  of  the  present 
time.  These  women  of  ancient  Greece  would  have 
been  fascinating  and  wonderful  in  any  country 
or  age.  We  have  come  to  regard  the  word 
hetairce  as  the  equivalent  of  "prostitute,"  because 
the  relation  which  the  more  cultivated  hetairce 
sustained  to  the  brilliant  men  of  art,  letters,  and 
jurisprudence  was  in  part  sexual.  The  word 
hetaira  means  "friend"  or  "companion,"  and  had 
in  it  at  first  nothing  of  a  dishonorable  nature. 
These  women  were  in  a  sense  the  radical  reformers 
of  their  day.  Most  of  the  women  of  Greece,  and 
of  all  other  countries  at  that  time,  were  ignorant 
and  held  under  great  social  restraint;  but  these 
women  refused  to  be  social  puppets;  they  de 
manded  place  and  influence.  The  only  way  at 
that  time  to  obtain  what  they  earnestly  coveted 
and  resolutely  demanded  was  the  one  way,  with 
all  its  unfortunate  features,  which  they  boldly 
took  and  ably  pursued.  Aspasia  was  a  worthy 
representative  of  her  class,  both  in  the  refinement 
and  elevation  of  her  mind  and  in  the  charm  of 
her  person.  She  was  interested  in  whatever  looked 
to  the  emancipation  of  her  sex,  and  she  used 
her  wonderful  influence  with  her  distinguished 
"friends"  in  that  direction.  Leaena  was  a  woman 


74*  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

of  the  same  class.  Her  name  has  been  preserved 
because  of  her  great  service  nobly  rendered  to  her 
fellow-conspirators.  She  bit  off  her  tongue  so 
that  no  torture  could  make  her  reveal  the  names 
of  those  who  were  associated  with  her  in  a  common 
plot.  Thargelia  accompanied  Xerxes  when  he  in 
vaded  Greece.  Her  talents  and  training  were 
such  that  he  engaged  her  to  negotiate  with  the 
Court  of  Thessalj,  and  she  with  no  difficulty  cap 
tivated  the  king  of  that  country,  and  married 
him.  One  of  these  brilliant  women  established  at 
Athens  a  house  that  we  in  these  days  tolerate 
with  averted  face.  But  there  was  this  remark 
able  difference  between  her  establishment  and  the 
baser  ones  of  our  modern  cities — she  gave  pub 
licly  lectures  to  her  girls,  and  to  their  visitors 
as  well.  In  these  lectures  she  treated  of  rhetoric 
and  philosophy,  and  her  ability  was  such  that 
Socrates,  Alcibiades,  Pericles  and  other  distin 
guished  men  listened  to  her  with  delight,  and  often 
discussed  with  her  questions  of  great  importance 
to  the  State.  It  may  be  that  she  incited  the  war 
against  Samos,  and  certainly  she  was  a  potent 
factor  in  the  conflict  with  Megara.  At  last  her 
power  became  so  great  that  the  virtuous  women 
of  Athens  accused  her  before  the  Areopagus,  and 
it  was  with  difficulty  that  her  life  was  saved ;  but  it 
was  saved,  and  the  lectures  continued.  Hip- 
parchia's  career  was  equally  remarkable.  She 
was  the  Cynic  philosopher's  mistress,  and  suc 
ceeded  Crates  as  a  professor  of  the  Cynic  philos 
ophy. 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  75 

Bacchis,  the  dear  friend  of  Hyperides,  was  pre 
sented,  in  token  of  her  learning,  with  a  costly 
necklace  which  was  coveted  by  well  nigh  all  the 
women  of  Athens.  The  one  fragment  of  Hy 
perides  which  has  survived  the  ravages  of  time  is 
that  eloquent  man's  oration  over  the  remains  of 
Bacchis.  Greater  than  all  these  was  Lais,  the 
beautiful  Sicilian.  She  was  a  slave  when  Apelles 
saw  her  carrying  water  which  she  had  drawn  from 
a  well.  He  was  captivated  by  her  beauty,  and 
bought  her  at  once.  He  gave  her  an  education, 
and  day  by  day  she  advanced  in  learning  until 
she  was  acknowledged  to  be  the  most  brilliant 
woman  in  all  the  learned  society  of  Greece.  Then 
he  freed  her,  and  established  her  at  Corinth  with 
"a  circle  of  lovely  girls"  of  whom  she  was  in 
charge.  Hers  was  a  house  of  prostitution,  but 
it  had  a  regular  school  where  the  arts  and  de 
bauchery  were  both  taught.  To  it  came  attract 
ive  pupils  from  Lesbos,  Phoenicia,  and  the  Islands 
of  the  zEgean.  Lais  rose  to  great  fame  and 
fortune.  She  spent  her  money  freely  in  adorn 
ing  the  city,  and  the  citizens  wished  to  possess 
her  statue.  The  sculptor  Myron  was  given  a 
commission  to  model  "the  woman  of  all  women 
the  most  beautiful" ;  but  when  the  artist  came  to 
study  her  charms  he  was  himself  so  dazzled  by 
them  that,  though  he  was  old  and  infirm,  he  threw 
himself  and  all  his  earthly  possessions  at  her  feet. 
She  spurned  him  and  his  gold.  In  no  wise 
daunted,  he  repaired  to  a  celebrated  perfumer 
who  dyed  his  hair  and  beard,  and  rejuvenated  his 


76  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

dilapidated  person.  Thus  tricked  out,  he  re 
newed  his  suit  only  to  be  again  repulsed.  She 
called  him  an  old  fool,  and  such  beyond  all  ques 
tion  he  certainly  was.  But  with  all  her  haughty 
magnificence,  Lais  had  no  power  to  prevent  Time 
from  despoiling  her  of  her  beauty.  The  merci 
less  years  wrinkled  her  brow  and  frosted  her  hair, 
and  there  was  no  perfumer  who  could  do  more  for 
her  than  an  other  and  more  seasonable  one  had 
done  for  her  once  spurned  would-be  lover.  Her 
money  faded  away  with  her  charms,  and  all  we 
know  of  her  old  age  is  learned  from  Epicrates, 
who  represents  her  as  a  drunken  hag  wandering 
about  the  Corinth  that  once  desired  to  plant  her 
statue  in  its  public  square,  seeking  to  sell  for  a 
pittance  what  once  vast  sums  were  wont  to  pur 
chase.  Perhaps  in  those  bitter  days  she  remem 
bered  how  once  in  the  height  of  her  splendor 
Xenocrates  won  his  wager  and  successfully  re 
sisted  her  though  she  displayed  her  every  charm. 
From  his  side  she  rose  with  the  cry,  "I  wagered 
to  rouse  a  man,  not  a  statue!"  Plato  derided 
her  ruined  beauty  when  she  was  old  with  these 
cruel  lines: 

"Once  at  Greece  proud  Lais  mocked, — 

With  gay  lovers  laughed  all  day; 
Now  these  lovers  come  no  more, 

Mirth  and  song  are  passed  away. 
Venus,  take  this  glass  from  me, 

Since  I  old  and  wrinkled  grow; 
What  I  am  I  would  not  see, 

What  I  shall  be  would  not  know."  x 

i  Marvin:  "Flowers  of  Song  from  Many  Lands,"  p.  85. 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  77 

Phryne  was  wiser  in  her  day  and  generation, 
for  she  was  less  prodigal  of  her  beauty.  Thus  it 
was  she  preserved  to  the  last  both  her  fortune  and 
her  fame.  Her  wealth,  all  of  it  won  by  evil 
ways,  was  fabulous;  so  great  was  it  that  when 
Alexander  destroyed  Thebes,  she  offered  to  re 
build  the  city  if  the  citizens  would  commemorate 
her  generosity.  She  did  not  ask  a  statue;  all 
she  demanded  was  an  inscription.  This  the  citi 
zens  of  Thebes  refused,  though  the  fair  courtesan 
had  numbered  among  her  lovers  the  most  gifted 
men  of  her  day.  Hyperides  the  orator,  Apelles 
the  painter,  and  Praxiteles  the  sculptor  were 
among  her  acknowledged  lovers.  It  was  to  her 
Praxiteles  gave  the  crowning  work  of  his  genius 
— his  Cupid.  Both  he  and  Apelles  reproduced 
in  all  the  glory  of  their  faultless  art  the  naked 
beauty  of  Phryne.  Story,  himself  a  sculptor  of 
rare  grace  and  charm,  knew  by  an  artistic  in 
stinct  what  was  the  sweet  delight  Praxiteles  felt 
when  he  turned  to  Phryne,  who  stood  by  his  side, 
and  said,  "See!  It  is  done;  and  forever  your 
lovely  face  and  form,  my  Phryne,  shall  live  in 
marble  for  all  the  ages  to  view."  Story  has 
shaped  the  scene  in  verse: 

"A  thousand  silent  years  ago, 

The  twilight,  faint  and  pale, 
Was  drawing  o'er  the  sunset-glow 
Its  soft  and  shadowy  veil, 

When  from  his  work  the  sculptor  stayed 
His  hand,  and,  turned  to  one 


78  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

Who  stood  beside  him,  half  in  shade, 
Said,  with  a  sigh,  '  Tis  done. 

'Thus  much  is  saved  from  chance  and  change, 

That  waits  for  me  and  thee; 
Thus  much — how  little! — from  the  range 
Of  Death  and  Destiny. 

'Phryne,  thy  human  lips  shall  pale, 

Thy  rounded  limbs  decay, — 
Nor  love  nor  prayers  can  aught  avail 

To  bid  thy  beauty  stay: 

'But  there  thy  smile,  for  centuries, 

On  marble  lips  shall  live, — 
For  art  can  grant  what  love  denies, 

And  fix  the  fugitive. 

'Sad  thought!  nor  age  nor  death  shall  fade 

The  youth  of  this  cold  bust, 
When  the  quick  brain  and  hand  that  made, 
And  thou  and  I  are  dust! 

'When  all  our  hopes  and  fears  are  dead, 

And  both  our  hearts  are  cold, 
And  love  is  like  a  tune  that's  played, 

And  life  a  tale  that's  told, 

'This  senseless  stone,  so  coldly  fair, 

That  love  nor  life  can  warm, 
The  same  enchanting  look  shall  wear, 
The  same  enchanting  form. 

'Its  peace  no  sorrow  shall  destroy; 
Its  beauty  age  shall  spare; 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  79 

The  bitterness  of  vanished  joy, 
The  wearing  waste  of  care. 

'And  there,  upon  that  silent  face, 

Shall  unborn  ages  see 
Perennial  youth,  perennial  grace, 

And  sealed  serenity; 

'And  strangers,  when  we  sleep  in  peace, 

Shall  say,  not  quite  unmoved, — 
"So  smiled  upon  Praxiteles 

The  Phryne  whom  he  loved."1 

Praxiteles  flourished  about  352-336  B.  C.,  in 
the  age  of  Philip  and  Demosthenes.  His  techni 
cal  skill  was  something  wonderful:  "The  limbs  of 
his  figures  were  so  soft  that  you  seemed  to 
see  the  pulse  of  life  and  the  quivering  muscle." 
Not  before  his  time  did  Aphrodite  put  off  her 
drapery,  but  when  he  appeared  she  showed  her 
self  naked.  Two  old  Greek  lines  which  I  have, 
in  my  "Flowers  of  Song,"  rendered  into  English 
run  thus : 

"Paris  has  seen  me  naked,  Anchises  and  Adonis  too, 
But  when  did  the  great  Praxiteles  my  undraped 
beauty  view?" 

Why  should  she  enquire?  Was  her  surprise, 
then,  so  great?  The  Princess  Borghese,  who 
was  no  saint,  sat  to  Canova  for  a  model,  and 
being  asked  if  she  did  not  feel  a  little  uncom 
fortable,  answered,  "No,  there  was  a  fire  in  the 
room."  Perhaps  Aphrodite  was  trifling  even 


80  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

as  was  the  beautiful  sister  of  Bonaparte.  What 
Paris  may  have  known,  or  what  may  have  been 
the  relation  of  the  goddess  to  Anchises  or 
Adonis,  concerns  us  little;  but  Praxiteles  knew 
her,  at  least  in  marble,  too  well  for  us  to  share 
her  feigned  surprise. 

Notwithstanding  the  decadent  condition  of 
Greek  life  there  were  those  who  regarded  the 
undraped  form  as  harmful,  and  who  with  Gyges 
(Herodotus  I,  8)  held  that  "with  her  clothes  a 
woman  puts  off  her  modesty."  The  early 
chaster  idea  passed  gradually  to  the  freer  until 
the  painter  Polygnotus  first  painted  women  with 
transparent  garments.  It  was  not  difficult  then 
for  Phidias  to  place  the  lad  Pantarkes  tying  his 
head  with  a  fillet  (Pausanius  5,  II)  near  his 
Homeric  Zeus,  even  though  it  was  well  known 
that  the  lad  was  a  boy-favorite  of  Phidias,  for 
the  sexual  violation  of  boys  came  to  be  an  every 
day  affair  with  the  Greeks. 

Who  was  Phryne?  She  was  a  poor  girl  of 
Thespise  who,  because  of  her  great  beauty,  had 
become  enormously  rich  at  the  expense  of  the 
finest  culture  of  the  land  and  the  age.  At 
Delphi  her  statue  was  placed  by  the  side  of  that 
of  King  Philip  of  Macedon.  A  philosopher, 
seeing  it  there,  exclaimed,  "Behold  a  consecrated 
gift  of  the  wantonness  of  the  Greeks."  Over- 
beck  views  the  matter  in  a  different  light,  for 
he  tells  us  that  "Praxiteles  understood  very  well 
how  to  express  a  more  delicate  perception:  the 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  81 

goddess  in  the  woman."  1  By  that  I  under 
stand  an  ability  to  spiritualize  the  material  form, 
which  does  not  seem  to  me  so  wonderful.  Every 
lover  does  as  much  in  his  mind  if  he  be  a  pure 
man.  Every  noble  love  transforms  and  adorns. 
It  gives  both  insight  to  the  artist  and  a  new 
beauty  to  what  he  would  adorn.  The  Greeks 
worshipped  material  beauty;  and  the  gods  also, 
it  would  seem,  were  wild  over  this  same  kind  of 
human  splendor,  for  they  snatched  Ganymede, 
who  was  the  fairest  of  mortals,  and  on  that 
Trojan  youth  poured  out  all  the  joy  of  their 
glorious  life.  It  was  beauty,  and  that  alone, 
that  made  one  fit  to  dwell  with  the  gods.  The 
Greeks  were,  however,  all  wrong  in  their  theory 
of  the  nude  in  art.  It  is  the  adorned  and  partly 
concealed,  and  not  the  entirely  undraped  form, 
that  acts  as  an  excitant  to  the  sexual  instinct. 
Artists'  models  know  this,  and  account  themselves 
safe  when  entirely  nude.  The  authoress  of 
"Studies  of  the  Human  Form"  tells  her  readers 
that  it  was  her  practice  to  disrobe  as  soon  after 
entering  the  artist's  studio  as  possible.  The  evil- 
minded  men  and  women  who  in  large  cities  con 
duct  vile  exhibitions  for  money  understand  this 
matter.  The  Cyprians  of  Paris  and  New  York 
are  in  long  skirts. 

An  early   commentator  on  Genesis  makes  the 
Fall  of  Man  to  be  a  sexual  catastrophe.     Adam, 

i  "Geschichte  der  Griechischen  Plastik,"  1870,  Vol.  2,  p. 
35. 


82  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

we  are  informed,  represented  the  mind,  and  Eve 
stood  for  the  sensual  nature.  It  was  contended 
that  before  the  creation  of  Eve,  the  first  man 
Adam  contained  in  his  person  both  sexes.  It 
was  the  coming  of  Eve  that  introduced  sin.  The 
life  of  Adam  was  purely  intellectual  until  Eve 
was  created;  he  was  occupied  with  knowledge  to 
the  entire  neglect  of  his  body.  With  his  death 
the  race  must  disappear.  Therefore,  in  order 
to  provide  for  the  continuance  of  the  human  race, 
God  made  also  the  woman.  God  divided  the 
two  sexes  in  the  man,  taking  from  his  rib  the 
sexual  part  of  his  nature,  and  forming  from  it 
Eve.  Then  it  was  the  two  sexes  became  con 
scious,  and,  the  one  knowing  of  the  other's 
presence,  they  both  realized  that  they  were 
naked.  Only  when  the  race  became  aware  of  its 
sexual  function  and  destiny  could  it  arrive  at 
any  feeling  of  its  need  for  covering.  Later  that 
feeling  of  nakedness  and  of  need  for  covering 
was  overcome  and  put  away  by  the  bodily  nature 
represented  in  Eve ;  but  the  intellectual  nature 
which  finds  its  representative  in  Adam  has  always 
contended  for  the  reserve  and  propriety  of  gar 
ments.  As  the  intellect  must  rule  the  passions, 
so  must  the  man  command  the  woman.  Thus 
some  of  the  old-time  commentators  expounded 
the  problem  of  sex.  There  are  a  number  of 
Oriental  couplets  of  more  than  ordinary  interest 
that  set  forth  the  beginning  of  sex,  and,  because 
these  are  peculiarly  apropos,  I  venture  to  add 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  83 

yet  this   one  translation   from  my   "Flowers   of 
Song  from  Many  Lands." 

"From    dead    and    senseless    earth    Almighty    God 

created  man: 

But  woman  made  He  from  man's  body  by  diviner 
plan. 

And  thus  on  earth  began  the  wondrous  miracle  of 

sex, 
The  human  heart  to  fill  with  joy,  the  empty  head 

to  vex. 

Man  was  the  first  in  dim  creation's  dark  and  an 
cient  line; 

But  woman  is  the  softer,  sweeter,  clearer,  more 
divine. 

The  Lord  from  inorganic  earth  made  man  for  toil 

and  strife, 
And  moulded  then  from  living  clay  young  Adam's 

lovely  wife." 

Of  course  any  excursion  into  Oriental  regions 
must  lead  us  far  from  the  present  field  of  in 
vestigation.  The  study  of  Latin  and  Greek 
contributions  to  the  subject  in  hand  covers  all 
the  ground  necessary.  The  sexual  perversity 
and  as  well  the  moral  triumphs  of  those  great 
lands  from  which  we  derive  so  much  of  our 
language,  and  so  much  also  of  all  that  is  su 
premely  good  in  literature,  must  suffice.  There 
is  but  little  that  concerns  us  that  may  not  be 
studied  to  advantage  in  the  history  and  literature 


84  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

of  the  lands  of  Virgil  and  Homer.  The  belief 
entertained  by  some  that  those  mines  of  wisdom 
are  now  well  nigh  exhausted  is  a  mistaken  one, 
for  they  are  still  rich  in  all  that  pleases  imagina 
tion  and  delights  the  mature  judgment. 

John  Nevizan  recounted  in  his  "Nuptial 
Grove"  thirty-four  essentials  to  womanly  beauty ; 
and  without  these,  so  he  tells  us,  no  woman  may 
be  called  perfect.  All  these  our  author  declares 
were  the  possession  of  Helen.  Her  beauty 
caused  other  women  to  hate  her,  which  will  not 
seem  strange  when  one  considers  how  anxious 
are  women  to  excel  in  beauty  of  person  and 
charm  of  manner.  Of  her  lovers  we  need  say 
little.  Their  names  and  exploits  are  known  to 
all,  and  are  the  themes  of  song  and  story.  The 
poets  understood  her  character,  and  never  hesi 
tated  in  describing  her.  The  land  of  Sandalion 
got  its  name  from  Helen's  sandal,  which  she 
lost  in  that  place  when  she  fled  from  Paris,  who 
would  have  forced  her.  Her  "willing  mind," 
of  which  Ovid  sings,  does  not  seem  to  have  in 
jured  her  in  the  eyes  of  the  men  and  women  of 
her  day.1  They  made  her  a  goddess,  and  raised 
to  her  fame  and  glory  a  temple,  beneath  which 
(so  Pausanius  tells  us)  both  Menelaus  and  Helen 
were  buried.  This  does  not,  however,  comport 

i  "One  Theseus  (if  I  hit  the  name)  before 

Had  borne  this  fair  one  from  her  native  shore. 
Theseus  was  young:  and  can  you  think  the  dame 
Return' d  a  virgin  from  so  fierce  a  flame? 
Call  it  a  rape;  yet  Helen  sure  was  kind: 
Repeated  rapes  betray  a  willing  mind." 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  85 

with  the  story  that  she  was  hanged  by  the  paid 
servants  of  a  woman  whose  husband  had  been  slain 
in  the  Trojan  war.  After  she  had  become  divine 
many  fables  about  her  were  invented.  It  was 
represented  that  Nemesis,  being  impregnated  by 
Jupiter,  laid  an  egg,  and  that  Leda,  finding  this 
egg,  sat  on  it  and  hatched  Castor,  Pollux,  and 
Helen.  A  rival  fable  represents  Nemesis  to  have 
laid  an  egg;  Mercury  took  the  egg,  carried  it 
to  Lacedsemon,  and  placed  it  in  Leda's  bosom. 
Thus  came  the  fair  Helen;  and  this  was  the 
reason  that  Leda  adopted  her  as  her  daughter. 

Helen  is  made  to  say  in  Euripides  that  Juno, 
to  punish  Paris  for  not  giving  her  the  victory  in 
the  contest  of  beauty  between  Helen  and  herself, 
deprived  him  of  Helen.  But  she  was,  after  all, 
not  so  cruel  as  to  leave  him  wholly  without  con 
solation,  for  she  gave  him  a  living  image  of 
Helen  which  was  formed  of  the  air,  and 
which  could  in  every  way  dissemble  and  imitate 
the  beautiful  daughter  of  Tyndarus. 

"Juno  enrag'd  at  loss  of  beauty's  prize, 
Robb'd  Priam's  son  of  me,  his  promis'd  bride, 
And  in  my  stead  gave  him  an  airy  phantom, 
Bearing  my  semblance.     And  this  the  cheated  boy 
Press'd  to  his  breast,  thinking  he  me  enjoy'd. 
Vain  thought!" 
i 

Paris  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  pun 
ished,  for  he  was  well  pleased  with  the  phantom, 
and  found  it  impossible  to  distinguish  it  from 
the  true  Helen.  But  the  Trojans,  not  knowing 


86  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

the  one  Helen  from  the  other,  were  sometimes 
pleased  with  the  woman  and  sometimes  with  the 
image,  and  so  after  angry  words  they  came  to 
blows. 

I  am  in  no  wise  surprised  at  the  exploits  of 
Paris,  but  I  have  always  been  amazed  at  the  in 
fatuation  of  Demosthenes.  That  most  illus 
trious  orator  fell  desperately  in  love  with  the 
beautiful  but  disreputable  Lais,  and  so  great  was 
the  passionate  folly  of  the  man  that  he  made 
a  journey  to  Corinth  upon  an  errand  of  his 
own  in  no  wise  creditable  to  his  learning  and  to 
his  gray  hairs.  Aristippus,  who  is  described  as 
"a  very  genteel  and  polite  man,"  and  who  was 
certainly  a  man  of  great  wit  and  elegant  man 
ners,  counted  himself  also  among  her  lovers. 
He  was  not,  however,  sentimental,  for  when  he 
was  told  that  the  courtesan  did  not  love  him, 
he  said,  "Wine  and  fish  do  not  love  me,  and  yet 
I  feed  on  them  with  pleasure."  But  Lais,  with 
all  her  beauty  and  accomplishments,  was  in  no 
wise  what  would  be  called  "squeamish,"  for 
among  her  followers  was  Diogenes  surnamed  the 
Cynic.  The  extreme  indecency  of  this  man  may 
be  doubted,  but  he  was  not  the  kind  of  a  person 
whose  society  one  of  delicate  tastes  could  long 
enjoy.  I  do  not  know  whether  it  is  true  or 
only  a  very  good  story  that  he  lived  in  a  tub, 
but  for  the  brief  time  he  lived  with  Lais  he  was 
most  decidedly  in  need  of  a  bath.  He  is  repre 
sented  as  having  a  torn  or  patched  cloak,  a 
greasy  beard,  and  no  shirt. 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  87 

That  the  Emperor  Caligula  entertained  his 
horse  at  supper,  and  introduced  the  animal  to 
the  most  distinguished  men  of  the  day  as  his 
friend  and  guest,  seems  to  us  a  strange  and  mon 
strous  thing;  but  it  certainly  was  not  so  aston 
ishing  as  was  the  apotheosis  of  the  prostitute 
Lamia,  the  depth  of  whose  infamy  is  indicated 
by  her  name.  A  king  lifted  her  from  the 
street,  and  placed  her  beside  him  upon  the 
throne.  To  provide  a  present  for  his  mistress 
he  taxed  Athens  a  sum  equal  to  $250,000  in 
our  money;  and  the  citizens  not  only  paid  it, 
but  builded  for  her  a  temple  when  she  had  been 
deified  as  Venus  Lamia.  Think  of  this,  and 
then  let  the  mind  contemplate  the  pure  love  of 
Darius,  the  last  king  of  the  Persians,  for  his 
wife.  Call  to  mind  his  prayer  to  the  gods  for 
the  success  of  Alexander,  who  was  his  enemy, 
because  Alexander  did  not  slay  that  wife  when 
she  was  in  his  power,  but  treated  her  with  the 
utmost  courtesy. 

Reflect  upon  Tiberius  Gracchus  and  his  wife 
Cornelia.  She,  when  a  widow,  refused  a  king  be 
cause  the  ashes  of  her  husband  pressed  too 
heavily  upon  her  heart.  Let  the  mind  dwell  upon 
Dominicus  Catalusius,  Prince  of  Lesbos,  and  his 
leprous  wife.  Though  disease  had  deformed 
her  face  and  made  her  presence  repulsive  to 
others,  he  still  encircled  her  with  the  tenderest 
love  of  a  husband.  Nor  would  he  be  deterred 
from  her  society  by  any  fear  of  contagion. 
Consider  the  heroic  love  of  Arria,  the  wife  of 


88  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

Czecina  Paetus,  celebrated  in  Martial's  Epi 
gram.  When  her  husband  was  condemned  to 
die  by  his  own  hand,  seeing  that  he  hesitated, 
she  seized  the  dagger  and  plunged  it  into  her 
own  breast.  Then,  withdrawing  it,  she  pre 
sented  it  to  her  husband,  saying  with  a  smile, 
"It  is  not  painful,  Paetus." 

"When  to  her  husband  Arria  gave  the  steel, 

Which  from  her  chaste,  her  bleeding  breast  she 

drew, 
She  said:  'My  Paetus,  this  I  do  not  feel, 

But,    oh!    the   wound   that   must   be    given   by 
you!'  " 

"How  sweet  to  the  soul  of  man,"  said  Hiero- 
cles,  "is  the  society  of  a  beloved  wife !  When 
wearied  and  broken  down  by  the  labors  of  the 
day,  her  endearments  soothe,  her  tender  cares 
restore  him.  The  solicitudes  and  anxieties  and 
heavier  misfortunes  of  life  are  hardly  to  be 
borne  by  him  who  has  the  wreight  of  business 
and  domestic  vexations  at  the  same  time  to  con 
tend  with.  But  how  much  lighter  do  they  seem, 
when,  after  his  necessary  vocations  are  over,  he 
returns  to  his  home  and  finds  there  a  partner 
of  all  his  griefs  and  troubles,  who  takes,  for  his 
sake,  her  share  of  domestic  labor  upon  her, 
and  soothes  the  anguish  of  his  soul  by  her  com 
fort  and  participation."  When  one  comes 
upon  words  like  these  from  the  dim  and  lonely 
past,  how  can  he  doubt  that  in  ancient  Greece 
and  Rome  the  same  tender  love  made  domestic 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS  89 

life  pure  and  beautiful,  even  as  we  find  it  to 
be  to-day  in  Christian  England  and  America? 
Euripides  shows  us  in  his  "Alcestis"  that  long 
ago  as  now  there  was  that  in  a  pure  and  true 
love  between  the  sexes  that  could  sanctify  the 
little  cares  of  life,  and  that  could  help  men  to 
bear  with  fortitude  the  more  distressing  ills  of 
human  existence.  The  story  of  Pastus  and 
Arria  is  only  another  part  of  the  same  noble  and 
touching  revelation. 

There  is  a  Supreme  Affection  that  is  not  only 
pure,  but  that  creates  purity  by  its  very  pres 
ence.  With  contempt  it  gazes,  when  gaze  it 
must,  upon  the  evil  infamy  of  lust  and  brutal 
appetite.  It  is  an  Affection  worthy  alone  to  be 
called  Love.  Resplendent  with  the  golden  light 
of  the  City  not  builded  with  hands,  it  wears 
upon  its  brow  the  ineffable  smile  of  its  Creator. 

We  are  now  come  to  the  end  of  our  journey, 
and  must  bid  adieu  alike  to  the  bright  and  beauti 
ful  spirits  that  have  made  the  way  delightful,  and 
to  those  dark  presences  whose  records  are  painful 
to  contemplate.  Their  names  are  in  history, 
but  where  are  they  themselves?  They  are  gone 
from  a  world  that  can  never  forget  them.  Long, 
long  ago  Villon  mused  as  we  are  now  musing, 
and  in  his  lovely  "Ballade  of  Dead  Ladies"  he 
asked  the  same  question  that  we  have  asked. 
We  can  make  no  better  conclusion  to  our  ex 
cursion  than  the  one  we  have  already  at  hand  in 
Rossetti's  translation  of  Villon's  "BaUade"  : 


90  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

"Tell  me  now  in  what  hidden  way  is 

Lady  Flora  the  lovely  Roman? 
Where's  Hipparchia,  and  where  is  Thais, 
Neither  of  them  the  fairer  woman? 
Where  is  Echo,  beheld  of  no  man, 
Only  heard  on  river  and  mere, — 

She     whose     beauty     was     more     than     hu 
man? 
But  where  are  the  snows  of  yester-year? 

Where's  Helo'ise,  the  learned  nun, 
For  whose  sake  Abeillard,  I  ween, 

Lost  manhood  and  put  priesthood  on? 

(From  love  he  won  such  dule  and  teen!) 
And  where,  I  pray  you,  is  the  Queen 

Who  willed  that  Buridan  should  steer 

Sewed  in   a  sack's  mouth  down  the   Seine? 

But  where  are  the  snows  of  yester-year? 

White  Queen  Blanche,  like  a  queen  of  lilies, 
With  a  voice  like  any  mermaiden, — 

Bertha  Broadfoot,  Beatrice,  Alice, 

And  Ermengarde  the  lady  of  Maine, — 
And  that  good  Joan  whom  Englishmen 

At  Rouen  doomed  and  burned  her  there, — 
Mother  of  God,  where  are  they  then  ? 

But  where  are  the  snows  of  yester-year? 

Nay,  never  ask  this  week,  fair  lord, 

Where  they  are  gone,  nor  yet  this  year, 

Save  with  thus  much  for  an  overword, — 
But  where  are  the  snows  of  yester-year?" 


II 

THE  GOOD  NEIGHBOR 

"The  Master  said,  'It  is  virtuous  manners  which 
constitute  the  excellence  of  a  neighborhood/  " 

— Confucius. 

"Fellow  Citizens:     I  presume  you  all  know  who 
I  am.     I  am  humble  Abraham  Lincoln." 

— From  an  Address  by  Lincoln. 


THE  GOOD  NEIGHBOR 

I  ONCE  knew,  long  years  ago,  a  man  of  large 
wealth  who  lived  in  a  modest  house  in  a  quiet 
little  village.  His  home  contained  rare  books 
and  delightful  pictures,  but  these  he  did  not 
idolize,  nor  did  he  make  any  selfish  use  of  them. 
He  was  not  what  is  commonly  called  a  book 
worm,  for  his  chief  satisfaction  in  life  was  not 
a  matter  of  books  but  of  men.  He  was  loved 
by  all,  and  no  man  envied  his  good  fortune. 
The  poor  were  drawn  to  him  by  many  acts  of 
courtesy  and  kindness.  Young  men  assembled 
in  his  library  to  converse  with  him  about  litera 
ture,  art,  and  the  humanities.  They  felt  the 
enthusiasm  of  his  spirit,  and  were  in  a  measure 
transformed  by  the  adoption  of  his  ideals. 
Places  of  evil-resort  disappeared  because  they 
could  not  thrive  under  his  disapproval.  The 
village  fathers,  influenced  by  his  public  spirit, 
became  aware  of  the  neglected  condition  of  the 
streets  and  of  the  town  hall.  Everywhere  men 
were  set  to  work  digging  sewers  and  relaying 
bricks  and  stones  in  long-neglected  sidewalks. 
A  course  of  lectures  brought  distinguished  men 
and  women  to  the  village.  Emerson  discoursed 
in  the  Congregational  church,  and  late  into  the 
evening  conversed  with  the  young  people  of  the 
village  beneath  our  good  neighbor's  roof,  en 
deavoring  to  awaken  in  their  minds  a  generous 
delight  in  noble  things.  Two  weekly  papers, 
93 


94  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

the  one  Republican  and  the  other  Democratic, 
for  years  expressed,  in  not  over  decorous  phrases, 
certain  very  decided  opinions  with  regard  to  each 
other,  but  they  both  underwent  a  marvellous 
change  of  heart,  and,  though  they  continued  to 
favor  different  political  measures,  they  revised 
their  vocabularies  and  laid  hold  of  the  olive 
branch.  There  had  been  a  vulgar  strife  between 
a  Presbyterian  church  and  a  rival  Episcopal 
church  situated  on  the  next  block.  Both  were 
agreed  in  only  one  thing — a  hearty  disapproval 
of  the  Unitarian  church  which  fronted  the  town 
hall  and  was  exasperatingly  prosperous.  Under 
the  strong  and  kindly  influence  of  the  good 
neighbor,  the  old  religious  (or  irreligious)  ani 
mosity  and  sectarian  bigotry  faded  out,  and  the 
three  churches  united  in  a  public  effort  to  im 
prove  the  condition  of  the  poor  and  to  reshingle 
the  leaky  roof  of  the  village  school.  A  free  cir 
culating  library  resulted  from  our  friend's  per 
sonal  effort  and  generous  subscription.  The 
cemetery,  a  mile  north  of  the  village,  had  been 
neglected.  At  his  suggestion  a  new  fence  was 
builded,  the  walks  were  regraveled,  and  certain 
headstones  that  had  fallen  were  replaced.  An 
cient  inscriptions,  well  nigh  illegible  through 
age,  were  recut,  and  sunken  graves  were  re- 
mounded.  Now  a  village  improvement  society, 
of  which  he  was  founder  and  first  president,  cares 
for  the  sacred  field  where  "the  rude  forefathers 
of  the  hamlet  sleep,"  and  the  cemetery  has  be- 


THE  GOOD  NEIGHBOR  95 

come  a  beautiful  park  in  which  men  and  women 
delight  to  walk  of  a  summer  evening. 

The  life  of  the  good  man  (he  likes  best  to  be 
called  "the  good  neighbor")  has  been  quiet  and 
inconspicuous,  but  it  has  accomplished  much. 
With  the  large  fortune  which  he  inherited  he 
might  have  builded  himself  a  palace  in  some  gay 
and  brilliant  city;  he  might  have  purchased  a 
swift  and  luxurious  yacht ;  he  might  have  wasted 
time  in  vulgar  indolence  or  in  vicious  self-in 
dulgence  at  Saratoga  or  Newport ;  he  might  have 
missed  the  pure  delight  and  noble  service  of  the 
worthy  life  he  lived.  Had  he  inherited  wealth 
when  a  very  young  man  it  is  more  than  likely 
an  automobile  would  have  seemed  to  him  a  thing 
more  to  be  desired  than  the  love  and  respect  of 
his  f ellowmen ;  or  that  the  gratification  of 
political  ambition  would  have  had  for  him  a 
charm  beyond  his  power  to  resist.  As  it  was, 
wealth  came  in  early  mid-life,  after  much  reading, 
some  religious  experience,  and  a  few  years  of 
calm  and  thoughtful  study  of  social  needs  and 
possibilities.  He  asked  himself  the  question, 
"How  can  I  use  to  the  greatest  advantage  for 
myself  and  others  the  little  life  that  for  so  brief 
a  season  I  may  call  my  own?"  He  answered  the 
question  thus,  "By  so  identifying  my  life  with 
that  of  my  race  as  to  live  over  and  over  again 
in  the  ennobled  lives  of  my  fellowmen."  I  am 
reminded  of  the  high  and  holy  ambition  of 
George  Eliot: 


96  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

"Oh,  may  I  join  the  choir  invisible 
Of  those  immortal  dead  who  live  again 
In  minds  made  better  by  their  presence:  live 
In  pulses  stirred  to  generosity, 
In  deeds  of  daring  rectitude,  in  scorn 
For  miserable  aims  that  end  with  self, 
In  thoughts   sublime  that   pierce   the   night   like 

stars, 

And  with  their  mild  persistence  urge  man's  search 
To  vaster  issues — so  to  live  is  heaven: 
To  make  undying  music  in  the  world, 
Breathing  as  beauteous  order,  that  controls 
With  growing  sway  the  growing  life  of  man." 

Human  life  is  brief,  and  before  its  days  are 
actually  numbered  its  vigor  and  zest  are  ex 
hausted.  Yet  its  possibilities  are  immense.  The 
great  achievements  of  history  are  rooted  in 
single  lives.  The  unselfish  life  alone  endures. 

There  dwelt  years  ago  in  Amesbury,  Massa 
chusetts,  another  man  who  was  celebrated  as  a 
good  neighbor.  His  name  was  Henry  Taylor, 
and  he  was  a  friend  of  the  poet  Whittier.  The 
best  account  we  have  of  Taylor's  life  was  written 
by  Whittier  for  a  village  paper.  Unlike  the 
other  neighbor  of  wbom  I  have  written,  Henry 
Taylor  had  little  money,  though  he  had  enough 
to  keep  him  from  want.  He  was  not  a  man  of 
affairs.  On  tbe  contrary,  he  was  a  mystic  and 
dreamer  who  led  the  quiet  and  simple  life  of  an 
unlettered  workingman.  He  was  no  scholar,  nor 
yet  was  he  a  great  reader.  Mr.  Whittier  tbinks 
Taylor's  entire  library  did  not  contain  more  than 


THE  GOOD  NEIGHBOR  97 

eight  or  ten  books,  among  which  were  a  volume 
of  Emerson's  Essays,  Alger's  "Poetry  of  the 
Orient,"  and  a  copy  of  the  New  Testament. 
Whittier  loaned  him  a  copy  of  Plato  which  he 
read  with  pleasure  but  did  not  care  to  retain. 
The  New  Testament  was  his  constant  companion. 
The  words  of  Jesus  were  always  with  him,  but 
his  understanding  of  them  was  different  from 
that  of  the  surrounding  Christian  world.  His 
religion  was  one  of  absolute  quietude ;  Whit- 
tier  describes  it  as  "a  religion  of  ineffable 
calm  blown  over  by  no  winds  of  hope  or  fear." 
He  had  no  anxiety  about  either  the  present  or  the 
future.  To  him  the  material  universe  was  an 
unreal  but  beautiful  pageant.  He  believed  that 
he  had  already  attained  unto  "the  rest  that  re- 
maineth  for  the  people  of  God,"  and  which  he 
identified  with  the  Oriental  Nirvana.  Yet  Henry 
Taylor  was  in  every  way  a  good  neighbor.  He 
was  kindness  itself.  He  was  wise  and  far-sighted 
in  judgment  and  advice.  He  had  a  passion  for 
helping  men.  The  calmness  of  his  life  was  con 
tagious.  The  tones  of  his  voice  were  reassur 
ing.  Men  in  desperate  straits  came  to  him  and 
were  dissuaded  from  suicide;  they  unburdened 
their  consciences  in  his  presence;  they  even 
sought  at  his  hand  absolution;  and  from  his 
quiet  home  they  returned  to  the  world  with  new 
hope  and  courage.  He  was  never  morose  or 
despondent.  Trouble,  sickness  and  death  could 
not  appal  him.  He  seemed  to  take  frightened 
souls  into  his  bosom.  It  is  said  that  the  dying 


98  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

lost  all  fear  of  death  in  his  presence.  His  dwell 
ing  became  a  temple;  and  to  hundreds  of  his 
fellow  men  he  was  something  more  than  a  priest. 
Whatever  may  be  thought  of  his  philosophy, 
no  one  will  deny  that  his  life  was  beautiful. 

There  are  as  many  kinds  of  neighbors  as  there 
are  men  and  women,  and  we  have  room  for  all. 
God  never  created  two  mountains  of  the  same 
height,  nor  did  He  ever  make  two  rivers  of  pre 
cisely  the  same  length.  There  is  nothing  like 
sameness  in  the  thought  of  God.  Uniformity 
is  a  sort  of  blasphemy.  We  should  preserve  and 
cultivate  personal  traits  and  even  eccentricities. 
Losing  these,  we  fall  back  into  the  common  stock 
of  nature  out  of  which  we  were  taken.  The  mat 
ter-of-fact  neighbor  was  after  the  Lord's  own 
heart,  but  none  the  less  was  Heaven  pleased  with 
the  mystic  and  dreamer. 

It  is  not  so  much  by  what  we  do  that  men 
are  helped  as  by  what  we  are.  Words  and  deeds 
are  discounted,  but  the  man  himself  remains  and 
becomes  an  indisputable  fact  of  which  no  argu 
ment  can  dispose.  He  gives  significance  to  the 
universe,  and  from  his  thinking  all  things  derive 
shape  and  color.  It  was  not  what  the  mystic 
and  dreamer  of  Amesbury  had  of  earthly  goods 
that  made  him  a  kind  and  useful  neighbor.  He 
had  little  to  give  apart  from  what  he  was  in 
himself.  "Do  you  know,  sir,  that  I  am  worth 
a  million  sterling?"  said  a  great  capitalist  to 
John  Bright.  "Yes,  sir,  and  I  know  that  it  is 
all  you  are  worth,"  replied  the  distinguished 


THE  GOOD  NEIGHBOR  99 

commoner.  The  man  with  his  million  sterling 
was  worth  little  indeed.  "Silver  and  gold  have  I 
none,"  exclaimed  an  apostle,  "but  such  as  I  have 
give  I  thee."  What  he  had  was  worth  more  than 
money. 

Man  is  at  his  best  in  society,  and  apart  from 
some  form  of  society  he  degenerates,  unless,  in 
deed,  he  be  one  of  those  rare  specimens  of  his 
race  that,  like  certain  flowers  of  the  desert, 
thrive  in  solitude.  There  are  men  who  should 
dwell  apart  from  the  world,  and  who  can  help 
their  fellows  only  from  a  distance.  Not  many 
such  are  to  be  found  within  the  narrow  space  of 
a  single  generation,  but  the  long  history  of  the 
centuries  records  the  names  of  a  multitude  of 
brilliant  men  and  women  who  were  recluses. 
Solitude  is  not  always  "the  country  of  the  un 
happy."  It  has  been  even  the  delight  of  not  a 
few.  Cowper  sighed  for  "a  lodge  in  some  vast 
wilderness."  Audubon  was  happy  alone  with  his 
rifle  in  the  forest.  Thoreau  was  equally  happy 
in  his  log  house  by  Walden  water.  "I  lose  half 
of  my  soul  in  losing  solitude,"  wrote  Maurice  de 
Guerin.  Again  he  wrote,  "My  God,  close  my 
eyes ;  keep  me  from  the  sight  of  the  multitude." 
The  brothers  of  La  Trappe  find  silence  and  soli 
tude  quite  to  their  minds.  "In  this  world,"  said 
Schopenhauer,  "there  is  much  that  is  very  bad, 
but  the  worst  thing  in  it  is  society."  Yet  not 
withstanding  all  this  and  much  more,  it  is  still 
true  that  it  is  not  good  for  most  men  to  be 
alone.  Comte  was  not  astray  when  he  wrote, 


100  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

"He  deserved  not  to  be  born  who  thinks  he  was 
born  for  himself  alone."  Even  the  few  men  and 
women  who  were  made  for  solitude  still  lived,  if 
they  were  of  noble  nature,  not  for  themselves 
alone,  but  for  others.  In  most  of  us  the  old 
savage  reappears  when  once  we  cease  to  touch 
shoulders  and  keep  step.  It  is  ours  to  render 
society,  from  which  few  can  be  safely  removed, 
not  only  tolerable  but  attractive  and  helpful. 
Here  comes  in  the  benign  office  of  the  good 
neighbor  who  need  not  be  the  intimate  friend  of 
all,  but  who  must  be  the  agreeable  companion 
of  some,  and  a  wholesome  life-giving  presence  to 
many.  My  neighbor  is  not  merely  the  man  or 
woman  whose  house  adjoins  mine.  Not  space 
but  social  proximity  has  to  do  with  the  making 
of  the  neighbor.  There  must  be  first  of  all 
human  qualities  that  "shew  a  heart  within  blood- 
tinctured,  of  a  veined  humanity."  Not  oneness 
of  opinion,  but  breadth  of  sympathy  is  essential. 
No  faith,  religious  or  political,  can  be  good  for 
a  man  when  once  it  begins  to  separate  him  from 
his  race.  Religion  means,  "again  I  bind." 
We  are  bound  to  God  only  by  "the  cords  of  a 
man."  "Every  man  for  himself,  and  the  devil 
take  the  hindermost,"  means  something  even 
worse  than  savage  life.  Nothing  but  "universal 
social  cohesion"  prevents  the  devil  from  taking 
every  one  of  us. 

In  every  small  district  there  is  likely  to  be 
some  gentle  spirit  that  finds  delight  in  Nature — 
delight  not  only  for  self,  but  for  others  as  well. 


THE  GOOD  NEIGHBOR  101 

Many  of  our  American  cities  lose  their  urban 
character  as  they  distance  the  great  business  cen 
tres  and  gradually  merge  themselves  into  the  sur 
rounding  districts.  The  suburbs  are  not  always 
pleasant;  in  many  cases  they  are  very  unat 
tractive.  But  there  are  outlying  regions  that 
closely  adjoin  the  city,  and  that  unite  in  them 
selves  the  conveniences  of  city  life  and  the  free, 
wholesome,  rural  spirit,  and  all  the  delights  of 
country  living.  In  such  neighborhoods  as  well 
as  in  villages  far  removed  from  large  and  thriving 
cities  there  are  gentle  souls  that  live  close  to  the 
fields  and  the  woods,  and  that  are  always  on  good 
terms  with  the  birds  and  with  animals,  both  wild 
and  domestic.  Perhaps  Pine  Hills,  which  is  only 
a  semi-rural  district  in  the  City  of  Albany,  is  in 
some  measure  such  a  neighborhood.  It  was 
more  rural  when  first  I  knew  it  and  made  under 
its  overhanging  trees  my  quiet  home;  but  it  has 
about  it  even  now  the  scent  of  the  not-far-away 
woods,  and  all  day  you  may  hear  the  song  of 
birds,  while  through  the  long  Autumn  nights  the 
crickets  make  the  darkness  well  nigh  as  musical 
as  are  the  warm  Spring  days  with  the  glad  carol 
of  numberless  birds.  To  some  the  cricket's  note 
is  sad  music,  but  I  like  to  hear  it.  It  has  in 
it,  I  know,  a  touch  of  melancholy  rendered  even 
more  tender  and  lonely  by  the  enfolding  dark 
ness,  but  there  is  also  about  it  a  sense  of  peace 
and  repose  that  is  not  far  removed  from  calm 
and  restful  slumber.  I  am  fond  of  the  sounds 
of  Nature;  they  soothe  and  comfort  the  soul  as 


102  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

nothing  else,  unless  it  be  the  thought  of  God, 
can. 

In  my  little  world  of  Pine  Hills  I  have  a  kind 
neighbor  who  is  neighbor  also  to  the  birds,  and 
who  is  most  of  all  the  friend  of  the  children. 
These  he  gathers  in  classes,  and  with  them  he 
scours  the  fields  and  woods,  not  to  shoot,  and 
snare,  and  trap,  but  to  study  as  Thoreau  studied 
nature,  with  neither  fish-line,  nor  shot-gun,  nor 
any  other  device  of  the  devil.  Henry  A. 
Slack  has  made  a  charming  little  book  about  the 
Pine  Hills  birds  as  he  knows  them,  and  he  knows 
them  well.  I  have  in  my  library  many  nature 
books,  but  there  are  among  them  few  that  I  more 
highly  prize  than  his  book  about  his  feathered 
friends.  To  help  us  to  understand  Nature  may, 
so  it  seems  to  me,  be  one  of  the  offices  of  a  good 
neighbor.  Life  is  for  most  of  us  quite  too 
mechanical  and  conventional.  Under  our  feet 
are  the  hard  stones,  all  around  us  rise  the  great 
walls  of  brick  and  cement,  and  over  head  vast 
clouds  of  smoke  and  dust  obscure  the  sun  by 
day  and  the  stars  by  night.  We  can  ill  afford 
to  lose  the  soothing,  cleansing,  and  uplifting 
influence  of  Nature.  Our  friend  and  neighbor 
who  has  helped  us  to  understand  bird-life  is  doing 
more  than  most  of  us  know  to  preserve  the  young 
from  the  temptations  of  life  in  the  city.  He 
is  surely  helping  us  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of 
earth  and  sky.  I  doubt  not  we  are  all  of  us 
better  men,  women  and  children  for  the  sweet 


THE  GOOD  NEIGHBOR  103 

and  gracious  intercourse  we  enjoy  with  country 
life. 

The  silent  and  unconscious  influence  of  a  man 
of  real  force  in  any  neighborhood  is  greater  than 
is  commonly  supposed.  The  subtle  power  of 
personal  presence  extends  in  every  direction,  and 
refuses  to  die  with  the  man  who  set  it  in  motion. 
Strong  men  impress  others  not  alone  by  their 
opinions  and  by  what  they  say  and  do,  but  by 
even  their  trivial  mannerisms  that  seem  so  unim 
portant.  You  cannot  imprison  a  man's  influ 
ence.  You  may  load  the  man  with  chains,  but 
that  marvellous  something  that  proceeds  from 
him,  and  that  is  in  a  way  a  part  of  him,  walks 
free.  And  think  of  the  lasting,  far-reaching 
and  mysterious  influence  some  men  bring  to  bear 
upon  the  world  through  their  writings;  and  that 
not  in  one  generation  alone,  but  in  many.  How 
certain  books  reach  out  beyond  the  immediate 
present  and  grasp  the  distant  future!  Biogra 
phies  like  those  of  Schleiermacher,  Bunsen, 
Jeremy  Taylor,  Schiller,  and  Richter  coerce  the 
imagination  and  give  prevailing  character  to 
conscience.  The  "Life  of  Henry  Martyn"  is 
supplying  new  recruits  to  missionary  forces  all 
over  the  world;  and  the  supply  is  even  larger 
than  it  was  when  the  book  was  still  a  recent  pub 
lication.  Mrs.  Oliphant  will  live  in  good  ac 
complished  so  long  as  men  read  her  "Life  of 
Edward  Irving."  Who  can  measure  the  influ 
ence  exerted  by  the  author  of  a  superior  manual 


104  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

of  devotion;  such  a  manual,  for  instance,  as 
Jeremy  Taylor's  "Holy  Living  and  Dying"  or 
Thomas  a  Kempis'  "Imitation  of  Christ?" 
Richard  Baxter  wrote  a  book  that  gave  life  to 
the  soul  of  Philip  Doddridge;  Doddridge 
awakened  William  Wilberforce;  Wilberforce 
moved  the  spirit  and  fired  the  tongue  of 
Thomas  Chalmers.  Rousseau  was  never  more 
alive  than  he  is  to-day  in  his  marvellous  yet 
humiliating  "Confessions."  Behind  the  Ameri 
can  Declaration  of  Independence  one  may  see, 
if  he  will,  that  man's  "Social  Contract."  So 
it  comes  to  pass  that  neighborliness,  like  every 
other  relation  in  life,  extends  in  all  directions 
and  to  regions  far  away.  "It  is  commonly  be 
lieved,"  wrote  Swedenborg,  "that  a  brother  or 
a  kinsman  is  more  a  neighbor  than  a  stranger, 
and  a  fellow-countryman  than  a  foreigner;  but 
birth  does  not  make  one  person  more  a  neighbor 
than  another,  not  even  a  father  or  a  mother, 
nor  education,  nor  kin  nor  country.  Every  one 
is  a  neighbor  according  to  his  goodness,  be  he 
Greek  or  Gentile." 

There  is  for  every  one  of  us  an  invisible  and 
intangible  life  that  is  not  less  real  because  re 
moved  from  the  world  of  sense.  We  live  in  the 
lives  of  others;  in  what  others  are  and  wish  to 
be;  in  the  subtle  influences  which  they  diffuse, 
and  by  which  we  are  in  a  measure  guided  and 
controlled.  Organic  ties  bind  us  together. 
Common  hopes  and  interests  make  us  to  be  a 
community.  Even  the  little  child  of  but  a  few 


THE  GOOD  NEIGHBOR  105 

months,  perhaps  of  but  a  few  days  only,  cannot 
die  without  having  made  some  contribution  to 
this  common  life.  Through  an  impression  made 
upon  the  mother  the  child  places  its  little  hand, 
it  may  be,  upon  the  entire  world  and  upon  long 
ages.  Sometimes  the  dead  accomplish  more 
than  the  living.  Here  we  touch  what  may  be 
called  a  neighborliness  of  the  soul.  I  think 
George  Eliot  had  in  mind  this  thought  when  she 
wrote  those  noble  lines  about  "the  choir  invisi 
ble"  already  quoted,  and  with  which  every  serious 
reader  is  familiar. 


ni 

SILENCE 

"The  eternal  silence  underlies  all  the  noise  and 
tumult  of  life  as  the  green  earth  beneath  sustains 
the  forests  that  shade  its  surface." 

— A  rchceologia. 

OVK  IOTI  Kpdrrov  TOV  ouairav  ov8e  Iv. 

— Amphis. 


SILENCE 

HOW  beautiful  is  the  quiet  falling  of  the 
snow.  All  the  long  day  that  magnificent 
display  goes  on,  and  then,  with  countless  stars 
in  the  silent  heavens,  night  comes  down  folding 
in  its  restful  darkness  the  spectral  landscape. 
Early  morning  adds  to  the  white  expanse  its 
crimson  and  gold,  and  behold,  the  new-born 
splendor  becomes  a  thing  no  human  language 
may  even  remotely  describe.  Gravity  and  cohe 
sion  keep  the  heavenly  bodies  in  their  celestial 
orbits  and  hold  revolving  worlds  together,  yet 
are  they  silent  as  the  descending  snow  and  in 
visible  as  the  air  we  breathe.  The  resistless 
forces  of  Nature  in  the  hazy  warmth  of  a  mid 
summer  noon  lift  thousands  of  tons  of  water 
from  river  and  ocean,  bear  the  glistening  drops 
far  above  the  highest  mountains,  and  deposit 
them  in  the  reservoirs  of  the  clouds.  The  entire 
process  goes  on  before  our  eyes  in  unbroken 
silence.  In  early  spring  millions  upon  millions 
of  buds  burst  into  fragrance  and  beauty  without 
a  sound,  so  that  one  might  lodge  in  May  or  June 
in  the  very  heart  of  a  forest  and  hear  only  the 
hum  of  an  insect,  the  tread  of  a  rabbit  in  the 
brush,  or  the  sighing  of  the  wind  in  the  tree- 
tops.  The  wild  rage  of  a  fool  might  be  heard 
miles  away ;  the  contending  of  many  fools  in  bat 
tle  might  be  heard  a  much  greater  distance ;  but 
God  rolls  this  earth,  twenty-five  thousand  miles  in 
109 


110  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

circumference,  over  the  viewless  carpet  of  space 
with  less  noise  than  a  cricket  makes  on  the  hearth 
at  night.  Amid  all  our  confusion  and  discord  He 
moves  with  a  serenity  that  means  power  and  a 
gentleness  that  means  love. 

"Into  the  darkness  and  hush  of  night 

Slowly  the  landscape  sinks,  and  fades  away, 
And  with  it  fade  the  phantoms  of  the  day, 

The  ghosts  of  men  and  things,  that  haunt  the  light. 

The  crowd,  the  clamor,  the  pursuit,  the  flight, 
The  unprofitable  splendor  and  display, 
The  agitations,  and  the  cares  that  prey 

Upon  our  hearts,  all  vanish  out  of  sight. 

The  better  life  begins;  the  world  no  more 
Molests  us;  all  its  records  we  erase 
From  the  dull  commonplace-book  of  our  lives. 

That  like  a  palimpsest  is  written  o'er 

With  trivial  incidents  of  time  and  space, 

And  lo!  the  ideal,  hidden  beneath,  revives." 

A  wise  man  said,  "To  destroy  you  must  re 
place."  The  way  to  be  rid  of  ugliness  is  to 
introduce  beauty.  To  make  an  end  of  noise  one 
should  cultivate  music.  Music  is  sound,  but  it 
is  not  noise.  Noise  is  confused,  hard,  mixed,  dull, 
and  non-elastic,  while  music  is  harmonious  and 
will  carry  much  further  than  mere  noise.  The 
sounds  of  Nature  are,  most  of  them,  reproduced 
in  human  language.  The  word  "roar,"  forcibly 
pronounced,  suggests  the  rolling  and  tumbling 
of  the  billows.  Words  like  "dash,"  "splash," 
"crush,"  and  "crack"  furnish  instances  in  which 
the  sound  of  the  word  brings  before  the  mind  the 


SILENCE  111 

meaning  to  be  conveyed.  Some  words  are  in 
themselves  musical,  and  the  pronouncing  of  them 
is  always  a  sort  of  singing,  even  when  they  are 
being  used  in  the  most  prosaic  conversation. 
Words  of  the  kind  have  few  consonants,  but  are 
rich  in  vowels.  The  Italian  language,  because  of 
the  prevalence  of  vowels,  is  the  best  for  musical 
purposes.  This  vowel  supremacy  has  acted  upon 
the  national  taste  and  thought,  and  so  Italy  has 
become  famous  for  its  distinguished  composers 
and  for  its  great  singers.  Children  should  be 
early  subjected  to  the  influence  of  good  music. 
It  wrill  go  far  toward  the  development  of  grace 
and  dignity.  It  will  open  the  mind  to  the  love 
of  beauty,  and  will  render  the  entire  man  gentle 
and  considerate.  It  is  now  being  used  upon  the 
insane,  and  some  physicians  think  with  good  re 
sults. 

Words  suggest  colors,  and  there  are  those  wTho 
believe  that  they  suggest  also  forms.  One  calls 
to  mind  the  answer  of  the  blind  man,  who,  on 
being  asked  what  idea  he  had  of  scarlet,  replied 
that  it  was  like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet.  The 
theory  of  sound  as  connected  with  musical  instru 
ments  has  been  classified  thus : 

WIND  INSTRUMENTS. 

TROMBONE    .  .  .DEEP  RED.        FLUTE     SKY    BLUE. 

TRUMPET      SCARLET.        DIAPASON DEEP    BLUE. 

CLARIONET      ....ORANGE.        DOUBLE    DIAPASON. PURPLE. 

OBOE    YELLOW.      HORN    VIOLET. 

BASSOON  (ALTO) DEEP  YELLOW. 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS 


STRINGED  INSTRUMENTS. 

VIOLIN      .........  PINK.        VIOLONCELLO      ......  RED. 

VIOLA    ...........  ROSE.        DOUBLE   BASS.  .DEEP   CRIM 

SON    RED. 

There  is  known  to  scientific  men,  and  especially 
to  physicians,  a  disorder  called  "synesthesia."  It 
is  a  curious  disorder  or  derangement  so  rare  as 
to  be  practically  unknown  to  the  ordinary  prac 
titioner.  It  is  described  as  a  defect  in  the  devel 
opment  of  cortical  centers,  which  are  not  so 
widely  separated  from  each  other  but  that  their 
offices  may  be  in  some  measure  confused.  That 
is  to  say,  a  stimulus  imparted  to  the  retina,  for 
instance,  may  fail  of  confining  itself,  where  this 
defect  is  found,  to  the  visual  centers,  but  may 
influence  as  well  the  adjoining  ganglia.  Thus 
it  sometimes  comes  to  pass  that,  where  this  pe 
culiar  disorder  named  synesthesia  is  present,  one 
may  be  said  to  actually  hear  color.  The  same 
sound,  affecting,  as  it  should  not,  the  neighboring 
ganglia,  causes  a  sense  of  color  or  of  some  shad- 
ings  of  color.  In  a  case  investigated  a  few  years 
ago  a  locomotive  whistle  imparted  a  golden  yel 
low  to  the  entire  landscape.  In  still  another  case, 
the  tones  of  a  piano  gave  a  spectrum  from  black 
in  the  bass  to  white  in  the  upper  keys,  with  a 
spectrum  in  between.  There  have  been  a  few 
cases  of  confusion  of  colors  with  odors  ;  and  in 
one  distressing  case  the  various  sensations  were 
wholly  confused,  odors,  tastes,  and  sounds  being 
hopelessly  mixed,  so  that  the  person  thus  afflicted 


SILENCE  113 

could  be  said  to  hear  colors,  see  sounds,  and  taste 
odors. 

The  effect  of  color  upon  the  feelings  when 
sounds  harmonious  to  them  are  made  is  exceed 
ingly  interesting.  The  sound  of  the  village  clock 
at  night-fall,  the  chirp  of  insects  in  early  even 
ing,  the  ripple  of  the  mountain  stream,  and  the 
wind  in  the  darkness  of  night — all  these  gentle 
sounds  suggest  each  its  own  color.  The  sound 
of  the  Falls  of  Niagara  has  been  called  "an  ap 
palling  sound" — at  night  it  suggests  darkness 
more  dense  than  that  of  midnight. 

Poetry  has  a  varied  sound  to  the  mental  ear, 
and  what  that  sound  shall  be  is  determined  by 
surrounding  scenery  and  circumstances.  Think 
of  the  exquisite  sweetness  and  tender  emotion  that 
gather  about  lines  like  these,  sung  in  the  evening 
twilight  on  the  bosom  of  a  lake,  or  on  some  over 
hanging  cliff  with  a  little  village  far  in  the  dis 
tance,  from  which  the  evening  bells  sound  faintly : 

"Those  evening  bells !  those  evening  bells ! 
How  many  a  tale  their  music  tells 
Of  youth  and  home,  and  that  sweet  time 
When  last  I  heard  their  soothing  chime !"  : 

The  mental  ear  has  much  to  do  with  the  quality 
of  sound  and  with  its  real  meaning  for  the  man 
who  listens  with  receptive  heart.  This  the  poet 
knew  right  well  when  he  wrote: 

i Moore:  "Those  Evening  Bells." 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

"Heard  melodies  are  sweet,  but  those  unheard 
Are    sweeter;    therefore,    ye    soft    pipes,    play 

on,— 

Not  to  the  sensual  ear,  but  more  endear'd, 
Pipe  to  the  spirit  ditties  of  no  tone."  1 

Noise  is  destructive  of  calmness.  The  great 
books  of  the  world,  nearly  all  of  them,  were  the 
outcome  of  quiet  hours.  The  tumultuous  stream 
is  seldom  deep,  nor  are  tumultuous  men  any  more 
profound.  It  is  also  true  that  the  noisy  man 
is  usually  indifferent  to  the  quality  of  his  work. 
It  may  not  be  possible  to  determine  the  precise 
relationship  of  the  one  to  the  other,  but  we  cannot 
fail  of  seeing  in  all  our  study  of  the  world, 
whether  of  long  ago  or  of  to-day,  the  existence 
of  that  relationship.  Peace  is  written  upon  the 
forefront  of  all  high  endeavor  and  great  achieve 
ment.  Quietness  of  soul  a  man  must  have  if  he 
would  give  enduring  value  to  his  work.  So  beau 
tiful  is  much  of  the  best  literature  of  ancient 
Greece  that  we  forget  how  commonplace  was  the 
ordinary  life  of  the  lower  orders  of  the  Greek 
people.  Professor  Sterrett  of  Amherst,  who  was 
a  long  time  in  Athens,  and  who  was  an  enthusiast 
in  the  study  of  the  early  classics,  has  discovered 
that  the  Parthenon  is  doomed.  Why?  The 
builders  of  that  structure,  the  architectural  beauty 
of  which  charms  the  world,  employed  first-class 
marble  wherever  the  eye  could  see  it,  but  where 
the  eye  could  not  see  it  only  the  cheapest  and 

i  Keats:  "Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn." 


SILENCE  115 

poorest  material  was  made  use  of.  To-day  those 
magnificent  ruins  speak  from  the  silence  of  cen 
turies,  and  all  who  will  may  hear  their  story  of 
early  dishonesty.  The  Greek  workmen  of  two 
thousand  and  more  years  ago  were  no  better  than 
the  workmen  of  the  age  in  which  we  live.  Dwell 
ing  in  the  presence  of  marvellous  beauty,  they 
absorbed  but  little  of  what  it  had  to  give  them. 
They  had  no  conception  of  the  glory  they  blindly 
wrought  at  the  behest  of  others. 

"Earth  proudly  wears  the  Parthenon, 
As  the  best  gem  upon  her  zone/' 1 

but  her  pride  might  be  less  did  she  realize  what 
dishonesty  was  in  the  heart  of  those  builders. 
They  lacked  vision  to  see  the  greater  beauty  that 
inheres  in  probity.  Juvenal  saw  it  when  he  wrote 
these  lines  in  his  Third  Satire: 

"A  flattering,  cringing,  treacherous,  artful  race, 
Of  torrent  tongue  and  never-blushing  face; 
A  Protean  tribe,  one  knows  not  what  to  call, 
Which  shifts  to  every  form,  and  shines  in  all: 
Grammarian,  painter,  augur,  rhetorician, 
Rope-dancer,  conjuror,  fiddler,  and  physician, 
All    trades    his     own,     your     hungry     Greekling 
counts." 

Were  those  workmen  worse  than  the  workmen 
of  to-day?  No,  they  were  quite  as  good  as  are 
the  toilers  we  employ.  Perhaps  they  were  better 
than  the  workers  of  the  present  time.  But,  never- 

i  Emerson:  "The  Problem." 


116  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

theless,  they  made  the  Temple  of  their  God,  the 
glory  of  the  Acropolis,  which  was  built  under 
the  administration  of  Pericles  and  under  the  su 
pervision  of  Phidias,  to  be  the  depository  of  an 
age-long  lie.  The  life  of  the  noisy,  turbulent, 
careless,  and  more  or  less  dishonest  Greek  work 
ing-man  was  a  very  different  thing  from  the 
serene  and  tranquil  existence  of  the  man  higher 
up.  It  is  so  with  us  to-day.  The  few  have  the 
leisure  that  seems  essential  to  the  nobler  forms  of 
culture,  and  to  the  quietness  of  both  temper  and 
life  that  are  a  part  of  culture.  We  idealize  men 
and  manners ;  and  we  idealize  also  out  of  all  recog 
nition  remote  ages.  The  cry  to-day  is  for  the 
wisdom  of  the  majority.  But  all  such  wisdom 
may  be  safely  accounted  folly.  Two  and  three 
thousand  years  ago  the  best  the  world  had  was 
from  and  with  the  few,  and  it  is  so  to-day. 

Think  for  one  moment  of  the  immeasurable 
loquacity  of  this  great  world  of  clamorous  peo 
ple,  shouting,  vituperating,  debating,  preaching, 
and  making  love  in  every  conceivable  language 
day  and  night,  and  year  in  and  year  out.  What 
a  useless  and  even  pernicious  clatter  is  shot  out 
into  the  air  in  every  direction  like  wireless  mes 
sages.  Who  can  count  the  sermons,  many  of 
them  inane,  that  go  up  from  all  kinds  of  pulpits, 
and  in  which  all  kinds  of  doctrines  are  proved  and 
disproved?  Think  of  the  political  speeches,  most 
of  which  are  lies.  Even  the  rear  platforms  of 
Pullman  coaches  are  now  utilized  by  vociferous 
disturbers  of  the  peace  as  though  screaming  loco- 


SILENCE  117 

motive-engines  and  rattling  car-wheels  did  not 
make  sufficient  noise.  Think  of  a  man  who  could 
travel  around  the  country  stirring  up  the  crowd 
to  take  an  interest  in  himself  and  in  his  magazine 
by  making  a  racket  with  his  mouth.  What  a 
way  to  advertise  a  magazine  or  a  paper !  Sup 
pose  all  the  magazines  in  the  land  were  to  send  out 
vociferous  representatives  to  create  a  hubbub  de 
structive  alike  of  sanity  and  physical  health. 
Under  such  tumult  and  outcry  men's  minds  and 
nerves  must  deteriorate. 

Perhaps  the  physician  is  the  man  to  whom  we 
should  look  for  suggestions  calculated  to  abate 
the  nuisance  of  which  we  write,  and  from  which 
we  in  common  with  thousands  suffer.  Dr.  H. 
A.  Boyce,  the  superintendent  of  the  Kingston 
General  Hospital  and  one  of  the  leading  physi 
cians  of  Canada,  while  abroad  visited  an  institu 
tion  where  patients  suffering  from  nervous 
disorders  are  cared  for.  He  tells  us  in  a  paper 
which  he  read  at  a  meeting  of  the  Canadian 
Hospital  Association  held  in  Montreal  on  March 
25,  1910,  and  which  was  printed  in  the  Medical 
Record  of  September  10,  1910,  that  what  most 
impressed  him  in  the  institution  he  visited  was 
the  care  taken  to  secure  freedom  from  all  unneces 
sary  noises.  He  was  requested  while  in  the  build 
ing  to  modulate  his  voice  so  that  the  patients 
might  not  be  disturbed.  He  said  among  other 
things,  in  speaking  of  certain  American  hospitals 
for  the  care  of  persons  afflicted  with  diseases  of 
the  nervous  system: 


118  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

"A  friend  of  mine  who  was  a  patient  in  one  of 
the  largest  hospitals  in  one  of  the  largest  cities  of 
this  continent,  a  hospital  that  deservedly  enjoys  a 
continental  reputation,  told  me  that  its  associations 
to  her  would  always  be  crystallized  in  its  personi 
fication  of  not  only  perpetual  motion,  but  noisy  per 
petual  motion.  When  this  is  the  impression  given 
by  one  of  the  best  institutions  what  must  be  that 
made  by  the  rank  and  file." 

My  own  experience  runs  in  the  same  direction. 
We  are  a  noisy  nation.  In  all  our  streets  are 
motor  cars  of  every  imaginable  kind,  making 
every  sort  of  a  noise  from  a  faint  whisper  to  a 
roar.  They  bellow,  yell,  shriek,  and  groan.  All 
night  you  may  hear  them  in  the  streets,  and  not 
a  chauffeur  or  car-owner  can  be  found  who  bas 
the  slightest  regard  for  tbe  rights  of  others. 
But,  after  all  bas  been  said,  it  still  remains  true 
that  no  sound  is  so  cruel  and  evil  in  its  results  as 
is  the  untutored  and  unrestrained  human  voice. 
I  have  sometimes  thought  it  might  be  in  every 
way  a  blessing,  were  it  only  agreeable  to  public 
feeling,  could  tbe  vocal  organs  of  the  worst 
offenders  be  extirpated.  Think  of  tbe  relief  it 
would  bring  to  this  world  were  the  entire  race 
of  stump-speakers  deprived  of  that  instrument  of 
torture  our  anatomists  call  the  larynx.  The 
heavy  mortality  might  be  urged  as  an  objection, 
but  even  this  some  of  us  could  view  with  equa 
nimity. 

If  we  ever  succeed  in  suppressing  tbe  rude  and 
barbarous  sounds  that  render  life  in  large  cities 


SILENCE  119 

uncomfortable  and  even  dangerous  to  health,  it 
must  be  with  the  cooperation  of  physicians  and 
men  of  scholarly  temper  and  attainments.  In 
the  Dutch  city  of  Utrecht  there  is  what  is  be 
lieved  to  be  an  absolutely  noiseproof  room. 
Heretofore  it  was  Professor  Wilhelm  Wundt,  of 
the  psychological  laboratory  of  Leipsig,  who  had 
come  nearest  to  the  scientific  elimination  of  all 
sound  from  an  inclosed  space,  but  Professor 
Zwaardemaker,  of  Utrecht  University,  has  gone 
one  step  further  and  he  has  communicated  details 
of  his  achievement  to  the  Amsterdam  Royal  Acad 
emy  of  Science. 

For  an  absolutely  noiseproof  room  it  is  essen 
tial  not  only  that  no  sound  shall  penetrate  it 
from  without,  but  also  that  it  shall  resist  sound 
propagation,  reflection  and  refraction  within. 
The  first  problem  is  comparatively  easy  to  solve. 
The  walls  of  Professor  Zwaardemaker's  room  con 
sist  of  six  layers  alternately  of  wood,  cork  and 
sand.  There  are  two  spaces,  one  between  the 
second  and  the  third  layer  and  one  between  the 
fourth  and  fifth,  from  which  the  air  has  been 
extracted.  The  inner  walls  are  of  porous  stone 
covered  with  a  kind  of  horsehair  cloth  known  as 
trichopiese,  a  Belgian  invention  which  is  sound- 
resisting  and  is  widely  used  in  Belgium  in  tele 
phone  booths.  The  walls  are  pierced  by  acous 
tically  isolated  leaden  rods.  The  roof  is  com 
posed  of  layers  of  lead,  wood,  asphalt,  paper, 
sea  grass  and  cork.  The  floor  is  of  marble  and 
is  covered  with  a  thickly  woven  Smyrna  carpet. 


120  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

An  unsympathetic  writer  said,  in  describing  the 
apartment:  "A  tomblike  silence  forever  reigns 
in  this  elaborate  room,  which  will  be  used  only 
for  clinical  studies."  In  truth,  the  room  is  one 
pleasant  to  be  in  whether  for  rest  or  for  study; 
and  the  time  will  surely  come  when  in  all  our 
large  cities  such  rooms  will  be  found. 

Gross  materialism  is  at  the  foundation  of  no 
small  part  of  the  noise  we  encounter  in  the  every 
day  living  of  the  average  man.  The  general 
tendency  of  materialism  is  in  the  direction  of 
coarseness  and  rudeness:  the  coarse  and  rude  are 
usually  clamorous  and  tumultuous.  Men  who  care 
nothing  for  the  arts  care  no  more  for  the  ameni 
ties.  They  see  no  reason  why  one  who  is  able 
to  storm  the  world  should  ever  think  of  attacking 
it  in  any  other  way.  They  are  unable  to  under 
stand  why  an  able-bodied  man  should  interest 
himself  in  things  that  call  for  delicacy  and  fine 
ness  of  perception. 

Imagination  is  as  essential  to  civilization  as 
are  firmness  and  endurance.  Without  it  you  may 
have  strong  men,  but  they  will  be  savages.  One 
savage  will  make  more  noise  than  a  thousand 
gentlemen,  but  with  all  his  noise  the  poor  savage 
is  only  a  savage  and  nothing  more.  George 
William  Curtis  wrote,  "Until  we  know  why  the 
rose  is  sweet,  or  the  dew  drop  pure,  or  the  rain 
bow  beautiful,  we  cannot  know  why  the  poet  is 
the  best  benefactor  of  society.  The  soldier  fights 
for  his  native  land,  but  the  poet  touches  that  land 
with  the  charm  that  makes  it  worth  fighting  for." 


SILENCE  121 

The  finer  elements  give  value  to  life.  Not  the 
man  who  shouts  himself  hoarse  over  some  popular 
idol,  but  the  man  who  in  silence  and  alone  pierces 
to  the  core  of  things  is  the  real  man,  and  he  will 
endure  when  all  the  empty  drum-heads  no  more 
resound. 

Neither  fine  personal  culture  nor  yet  anything 
resembling  the  best  there  is  in  art  is  likely  to 
come  of  a  republic.  The  rule  of  the  average 
man,  who  is  without  other  training  than  that 
which  comes  of  a  daily  struggle  with  the  hard 
necessities  of  life,  will  be  marked  by  the  noise 
and  tumult  by  which  he  has  been  all  his  days 
surrounded.  You  might  as  well  expect  an  unin- 
structed  man  to  paint  a  great  picture  as  to  bring 
into  existence  and  sustain  noble  and  enduring  in 
stitutions.  The  rude  clamor  of  vulgar  strife  for 
such  poor  returns  as  must  always  engage  the 
attention  of  untutored  men,  can  produce  only 
self-exploitation  and  political  chaos. 

Emerson  said  no  truer  thing  than  this,  "The 
gentleman  and  lady  make  no  noise."  Fineness 
of  touch  indicates  fineness  of  feeling.  When 
John  O'Keeffe  described  a  fellow  author  as  "all 
puff,  rattle,  squeak,  and  ding-dong,"  he  described 
under  the  figure  of  a  steamboat  making  final 
preparation  for  the  voyage,  an  ill-bred  and  bad- 
mannered  man  wanting  that  ultimate  efflorescence 
of  civilization  we  call  culture.  Nothing  meaner 
was  ever  said  of  Thomas  Moore  than  this  that 
Arthur  Symons  said :  "Moore's  trot,  gallop,  and 
jingle  of  verse  has,  no  doubt,  its  skill  and  its 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

merit;  but  its  skill  is  not  seldom  that  of  the  cir 
cus-rider,  and  its  merit  no  more  than  to  have 
gone  the  due  number  of  times  around  the  ring 
without  slackening  speed."  When  a  man  need 
lessly  slams  the  door,  making  every  panel  rattle 
and  every  nerve  in  my  body  frantic,  I  know  with 
out  further  evidence  that  I  am  in  the  presence  of 
a  rude  fellow  from  whom  I  shall  do  well  to  escape 
so  soon  as  possible. 

The  new  machine  not  yet  perfected  is  noisy ; 
when  the  machine  shall  have  become  sufficiently 
improved  it  will  accomplish  more  and  do  its  work 
in  a  better  way,  but  there  will  be  no  more  of  the 
old-time  clatter  of  its  badly  adjusted  parts.  It 
is  so  also  with  these  human  machines.  Schopen 
hauer  had  all  this  in  mind  when  he  wrote:  "I 
have  ever  been  of  opinion  that  the  amount  of 
noise  a  man  can  support  with  equanimity  is  in 
inverse  proportion  to  his  mental  powers,  and  may 
be  taken,  therefore,  as  a  measure  of  intellect 
generally.  If  I  hear  a  dog  barking  for  hours 
on  the  threshold  of  a  house,  I  know  well  enough 
what  kind  of  brains  I  may  expect  from  its  in 
habitants." 

To  a  thoughtful  mind  the  silence  of  Nature  is 
even  more  impressive  than  are  the  convulsions  and 
tornadoes  that  startle  and  affright.  The  un 
trained  imagination  is  filled  with  surprise  and 
wonder  when  fierce  winds  lash  the  ocean  into 
wild  and  ungoverned  fury;  but  to  poet  and 
artist  the  serene  glory  of  sunrise  and  the  gentle 
approach  of  evening  twilight  present  an  attrac- 


SILENCE 

tion  quite  as  pleasing  as  are  the  more  exceptional 
displays  of  natural  force.  In  the  great  world 
of  human  life  of  which  we  are  a  part  the  same 
thing  is  true.  To  a  finely  attuned  temper  and 
a  cultivated  mind  there  is  an  impressiveness  in 
the  silence  of  the  right  man  at  the  right  time 
that  no  display  of  passion  can  equal.  The 
silence  of  our  Saviour  not  only  surprised  Peter, 
but  impresses  and  will  always  impress  men  by 
the  fine  eloquence  of  its  rebuke.  "Study  to  be 
quiet,"  wrote  an  apostle.  Few  of  us,  with  all 
our  study,  have  yet  acquired  much  of  that  Di 
vine  skill.  Even  into  our  worship  we  have  in 
troduced  a  self-assertion  that  savors  of  self-will ; 
we  have  invented  pomps  and  splendors  that 
belittle  in  the  minds  of  men  the  greater  majesty 
of  Heaven.  It  may  be  that  those  who  call  them 
selves  "Friends"  have  in  the  simplicity  of  their 
manners  and  worship  made  religion  unattractive 
and  divested  it  of  a  beauty  that  might  well  belong 
to  it ;  but  it  is  also  true  that  in  our  gorgeous 
rituals  and  ostentatious  services  we  have  lost  sight 
of  that  spiritual  beauty  which  is  described  in  the 
Sacred  Writings  as  "the  beauty  of  holiness," 
and  for  the  cultivation  of  which  old-fashioned 
meditation  and  aloneness-with-God  are  essential. 
Our  sermons  are  too  often  mere  displays  of 
learning  and  eloquence.  Our  prayers  lack  rever 
ence  and  sincerity.  Our  sacred  songs  are  fre 
quently  only  musical  exercises  so  arranged  as  to 
display  the  excellent  voices  in  the  choir-loft.  We 
who  know  so  little  have  so  much  to  say  to  God 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

that  we  have  neither  inclination  nor  time  to  at 
tend  to  the  things  He  would  say  to  us. 
"Silence,"  wrote  Carlyle,  "is  deep  as  Eternity, 
speech  is  shallow  as  Time."  Before  his  day  the 
Swiss  said,  "Sprechen  ist  silbem,  Schweigen  ist 
golden."  Our  best  thoughts  come  of  silence, 
without  some  measure  of  which  we  can  never  be 
anything  but  fools.  How  then,  can  a  wise  man 
delight  in  noise? 

There  is  that  in  noise  which  belittles  a  man, 
and  renders  him  vulgar  and  offensive.  Children 
make  a  noise  in  order  that  they  may  attract 
attention.  It  is  an  early  display  of  the  "old 
Adam"  of  egotism.  For  the  same  reason  "chil 
dren  of  a  larger  growth"  remain  children  all 
their  days.  Vulgar  persons  cannot  be  still  one 
moment  unless  they  are  fast  asleep.  Culture  dif 
fers  from  rudeness  in  this,  that  it  puts  the  man 
in  possession  of  himself,  gives  him  self-control  and 
quiet  habits.  The  largest  part  of  every  man 
remains  unused  for  the  reason  that  the  man  does 
not  possess  very  much  of  himself.  He  is  an  un 
reclaimed  morass  upon  which  no  substantial 
structure  may  be  builded.  Yet  men  see  that 
training  is  a  beautiful  thing,  and  they  would  have 
it  appear  to  their  neighbors  that  they  have  come 
to  possess  it.  But  no  one  will  mistake  the  noisy 
appurtenances  that  are  displayed  for  the  gold 
and  silver  of  that  noble  refinement  which  the 
ancients  likened  to  a  rose.  That  flower  was  con 
secrated  to  Harpocrates,  the  god  of  silence; 
and  to  the  men  of  early  days  it  was  a  symbol  of 


SILENCE  125 

peace  and  quietness.  Suspended  over  the  table 
at  a  banquet,  the  Romans  regarded  it  as  a  guar 
antee  that  nothing  said  by  the  guests  would  be 
elsewhere  repeated.  To  noise  about  what  was 
said  sub  rosa  was  a  gross  betrayal  of  confidence. 
So  also  the  rose  came  to  be  carved  above  con 
fessionals  in  many  parts  of  Europe  to  show  how 
strict  should  be  the  privacy  observed;  how  silent 
the  priest  should  remain  into  whose  ear  so  many 
secrets  are  breathed.  Over  the  urns  that  con 
tained  the  ashes  of  their  dead  they  scattered  the 
sacred  flower  as  a  symbol  of  the  silence  and  peace 
of  that  last  sleep  which  they  called  "the  rest." 
Drummond,  the  Scotch  poet,  often  spoke  of  the 
rose  as  an  emblem  of  that  long  repose  for  which 
he  sighed;  and  he  requested  that  upon  the  stone 
over  his  grave  might  be  carved  these  lines : 

"Here    Damon    lies,    whose    songs    did    sometimes 

grace 

The     murmuring     Esk: — may    roses     shade     the 
place." 

I  have  often  wished  there  might  be  established 
in  our  turbulent  United  States  a  Society  of  the 
Rose  (Centifolia,  I  should  say)  for  the  cultiva 
tion  of  silence.  There  was  once  such  a  society 
at  Amadan,  in  Persia,  and  of  it  Zeb,  the  Eastern 
philosopher,  has  left  a  lovely  story  which  has 
been  rendered  into  English  by  Madame  de  La- 
tour: 

"The  Society  (it  was  called  an  Academy)  had 
the  following  rules:  Its  members  must  think  much, 


126  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

write  a  little,  and  be  as  silent  as  possible.  The 
learned  Zeb,  celebrated  through  all  the  East,  find 
ing  that  there  was  a  vacancy  in  the  Society,  en 
deavored  to  obtain  it  for  himself,  but  arrived, 
unfortunately,  too  late.  The  Society  was  annoyed 
because  it  had  given  to  power  what  belonged  to 
merit;  and  the  president,  not  knowing  how  to  ex 
press  a  refusal  without  mortifying  the  assembly, 
caused  a  cup  to  be  brought  which  he  filled  so  full 
of  water  that  a  single  drop  more  would  have  made 
it  run  over.  The  wise  philosopher  understood  by 
that  emblem  that  no  place  remained  for  him,  and 
was  retiring  sadly  when  he  perceived  a  rose  petal 
at  his  feet.  At  that  sight  he  took  courage,  seized 
the  petal,  and  placed  it  so  delicately  on  the  water 
that  not  a  drop  escaped.  At  this  ingenious  allusion 
to  the  rules  of  the  Society  the  whole  assembly 
arose,  and,  gazing  with  delight  upon  the  wise  man, 
signified  to  him  their  acceptance  of  him  as  a  fellow 
member.  Not  a  word  was  said,  but  all  was  under 
stood." 

There  are  indications  that  the  authorities  in 
some  of  our  large  cities  are  beginning  to  realize 
their  responsibility  in  the  matter  of  unnecessary 
noise.  There  have  been  instances  in  which  the 
municipal  authorities  have  stopped  certain  night 
noises  in  the  neighborhood  of  hospitals.  Such  an 
instance  occurred  in  Birmingham,  England,  a 
few  years  ago,  when  the  city  clock  near  the  hos 
pital,  which  loudly  chimed  each  quarter  of  the 
hour  to  the  distraction  and  hurt  of  the  patients, 
was  not  permitted  to  sound  its  notes  in  the  night 
hours. 


SILENCE  127 

There  is  now  in  the  City  of  New  York  "The 
Society  for  the  Suppression  of  Unnecessary 
Noise"  which,  though  it  has  existed  only  four 
years,  is  doing  effective  work.  Some  of  the 
noises  made  by  steamboats  are  useless,  and  a  few 
of  these  have  been  suppressed  in  the  harbor  of 
New  York.  "Hospital  streets"  have  had  warning 
signs  posted  near  them,  requesting  that  as  little 
noise  as  possible  be  made  in  the  neighborhood. 
School  children  have  been  instructed  by  the  agents 
of  the  Society  in  the  gentle  art  of  quietness,  which 
is  only  the  art  of  generous  consideration  for  oth 
ers.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  at  no  distant  day  the 
Society  will  succeed  in  suppressing  the  horrible 
and  in  every  way  obnoxious  Fourth  of  July 
racket,  thus  reducing  the  number  of  casualties 
which  at  present  it  is  appalling  to  contemplate. 

Dr.  Forbes  Winslow  was  in  his  day,  which  was 
not  so  very  long  ago,  a  distinguished  specialist 
in  disorders  of  the  mind  and  diseases  of  the  nerv 
ous  system.  Because  I  refer  in  this  paper  to  the 
opinion  of  another  physician  I  feel  the  more  free 
to  quote  here  the  words  of  Dr.  Winslow  even 
though  I  know  that  to  some  of  my  readers  what 
he  has  to  say  must  appear  extravagant.  Thus 
he  wrote  a  short  time  before  his  death: 

"By  a  simple  arithmetical  calculation  it  can  be 
shown  the  exact  year  when  there  will  be  more  in 
sane  persons  in  the  world  than  sane.  We  are 
gradually  approaching,  with  the  decadence  of  youth, 
near  proximity  to  a  nation  of  madmen.  An  insane 
world  is  looked  forward  to  by  me  with  certainty  in 


128  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

the  not  far  distant  future.     The  human  race  is  de 
generating." 

What  noisy  turbulence  a  world-wide  lunatic 
asylum  would  bring  with  it!  I  cannot  share  Dr. 
Winslow's  fear,  nor  can  I  look  forward  to  a  time 
when  our  human  race  will  go  stark  mad.  But 
I  believe,  with  Dr.  Winslow,  that  in  many  places 
our  race  has  degenerated;  and  no  one  can  doubt, 
I  think,  that  the  race  is  capable  of  still  greater 
degeneration.  We  as  a  nation  are  now  experi 
menting  with  the  theories  of  the  brilliant  and 
fantastic  Rousseau — theories  expressed  in  many 
places,  but  more  especially  in  his  famous  book, 
"The  Social  Contract."  It  would  have  been 
much  better  for  our  world  had  the  Frenchman 
stuck  to  his  watch-making,  and  left  philosophy 
to  others ;  though,  in  truth,  his  "Confessions"  is 
a  human  document  of  no  little  value  to  mature  and 
thoughtful  minds.  His  theory  of  government 
has  done,  and  will  continue  to  do,  much  harm. 
The  common  people,  untrained  and  in  every  way 
unfit  to  exercise  the  functions  of  government,  are 
trusted  with  all  the  complicated  and  difficult  ma 
chinery  of  the  State.  They  are  now  at  work 
with  vast  noise  and  wild  enthusiasm  on  the  fool's 
experiment  of  self-government.  What  will  come 
of  it?  Well,  something  very  like  the  turbulence 
of  Dr.  Winslow's  world-asylum.  One  may  hear 
even  now  something  of  its  noise.  Plato  was  wiser 
than  our  witty  Frenchman.  This  is  what  he  has 
to  say,  or  rather  what  he  makes  Socrates  say : 


SILENCE  129 

"Citizens  .  .  .  you  are  brothers,  yet  God 
has  framed  you  differently.  Some  of  you  have  the 
power  of  command,  and  these  he  has  composed  of 
gold,  wherefore  also  they  have  the  greatest  honor; 
others  of  silver,  to  be  auxiliaries;  others  again,  who 
are  to  be  husbandmen  and  craftsmen,  he  has  made 
of  brass  and  iron;  and  the  species  will  generally 
be  preserved  in  the  children.  But  as  you  are  of 
the  same  original  family,  a  golden  parent  will  some 
times  have  a  silver  son,  or  a  silver  parent  a  golden 
son.  And  God  proclaims  to  the  rulers,  as  a  first 
principle,  that  before  all  they  should  watch  over 
their  offspring,  and  see  what  elements  mingle  with 
their  nature;  for  if  the  son  of  a  golden  or  silver 
parent  has  an  admixture  of  brass  and  iron,  then 
Nature  orders  a  transposition  of  ranks,  and  the  eye 
of  the  ruler  must  not  be  pitiful  towards  his  child 
because  he  has  to  descend  in  the  scale  and  become 
a  husbandman  or  an  artisan;  just  as  there  may  be 
others  sprung  from  the  artisan  class,  who  are  raised 
to  honor,  and  become  guardians  and  auxiliaries. 
For  an  oracle  says  that  when  a  man  of  brass  or  iron 
guards  the  State,  it  will  then  be  destroyed." 

This  is  royal  wisdom  come  down  from  distant 
ages,  but  there  is  a  Divine  Wisdom  even  more 
ancient  in  the  words  of  the  Preacher:  "Woe 
unto  thee,  O  land,  when  thy  king  is  a  child." 
Woe  unto  whatever  land  is  ruled  by  brass  and 
iron.  A  Latin  line  too  often  quoted  tells  us  that 
the  voice  of  the  people  is  that  of  God.  It  is 
nothing  of  the  kind.  Counting  noses  will  give 
us  no  Divine  Wisdom. 

Religion  owes  as  much  to  silence  as  silence  owes 


130  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

to  it.  It  was  only  when  the  Patriarch  was  sur 
rounded  by  silence  that  he  could  hear  the  voice 
of  God.  "Commune  with  your  heart,"  wrote 
the  Psalmist,  "and  be  still."  "Be  still,"  said  the 
Eternal,  "and  know  that  I  am  God."  How  many 
eremites  and  holy  men  have  sought  the  knowledge 
of  God,  not  in  schools  and  books,  but  in  the 
stillness  of  their  own  hearts.  The  history  of  the 
Christian  Church  is  full  of  beautiful  instances  of 
the  acquirement  of  the  knowledge  of  divine  things, 
not  by  the  rude  clamor  of  discussion,  but  by  the 
cultivation  of  a  quiet  spirit.  Our  Saviour  sought 
the  silence  of  the  hills,  and  was  all  night  in  prayer 
that  He  might  thus  refresh  his  soul  and  acquire 
strength  for  the  great  mission  of  His  wonderful 
and  blessed  life.  And  what  humanizing  and  civ 
ilizing  results  have  come  to  the  world  through 
these  seasons  and  lives  of  silence  and  soli 
tude.  Alone  in  caves  and  desert  places  the  Sa 
cred  Scriptures  and  the  ancient  classics  were 
translated  into  living  languages  that  men  could 
read.  Some  of  these  recluses  were  themselves  gen 
tle  and  inspiring  poets  whose  words  have  com 
forted  and  instructed  the  hearts  of  men  in  all 
succeeding  ages. 

Saint  Simeon,  the  hermit,  who  was  born  in 
Aleppo,  where  with  wealthy  and  distinguished 
parents  he  passed  his  youth,  was  a  noble  instance 
of  literary  as  well  as  of  spiritual  devotion.  When 
a  young  man  he  went  to  Alexandria,  where  after 
only  six  years  of  study  he  became  one  of  the 
learned  men  of  the  world.  It  was  in  Alexandria 


SILENCE  131 

that  he  found  the  new  faith  and  became  a  Chris 
tian.  Every  effort  was  made  to  prevent  him  from 
going  into  the  desert,  but  nothing  could  shake 
his  determination.  He  lived  many  years  on  a 
rugged  cliff  over-hanging  the  banks  of  the  Eu 
phrates.  Alone  he  thought  and  prayed,  and 
composed  some  of  the  most  lovely  lines  of  verse 
that  have  come  down  to  us  from  the  past.  One 
sees  at  once  his  love  of  solitude  and  silence  in 
his  poem,  "The  Sabbath  Morning."  He  sings: 

"Sweet  Sabbath  morning! — On  my  wakeful  ear 
No  eager  voices  rush;  all  is  still  here! 
Save  when  some  early  songster,  singing  near, 
Comes  to  delight  me,  warbling  strong  and  clear.'* 

It  was  not  unbroken  silence  that  this  saint  in 
sisted  upon,  for  to  him  the  bird-song  was  pleas 
ing.  He  longed  for  and  sought  stillness  of  the 
soul:  the  same  stillness  the  Friends  or  Quakers, 
so  unlike  him  in  faith,  hold  to  be  essential  to 
spiritual  growth. 

This  sense  of  need  that  leads  the  anchorite  to 
seek  some  measure  of  silence  is  not  peculiar  to 
those  who  receive  the  Christian  faith.  There  are 
thousands  of  Buddhist  monks  and  hermits  in, 
India  who  place  greater  emphasis  upon  the  im 
portance  of  silence  than  do  Christian  hermits. 
Oriental  literature  is  full  of  devout  and  mystical 
poems  that  recommend  and  call  for  quietness  of 
spirit.  The  Buddha  was  himself  a  religious  re 
cluse,  though  he  had  his  disciples,  and  associated 
in  some  measure  with  his  fellow  men.  The  quiet- 


132  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

ness  of  all  God's  operations  as  compared  with 
those  of  His  creatures  is  a  favorite  theme  with 
Eastern  poets.  Thus  sings  an  Oriental  mystic : 

"In  silence  wise  men  oft  great  things  have  to  per 
fection  brought; 

And  fools  as  oft  have  made  a  most  tremendous 
noise  for  naught. 

The  mighty  sky-wheel  rolls  about  its  axis  without 

sound : 
The  weaver's  rickety  spool  rattles  its   clattering 

course  around. 

This  wooden  bobbin  only  a  small  piece  of  linen 

yields : 
That    azure    one    with    starry    veil    overspreads 

heaven's  boundless  fields." 

Mohammed  was  a  child  of  solitude  and  silence. 
His  visions  came  to  him  when  he  was  far  out  on 
the  desert.  It  was  there,  surrounded  by  natural 
desolation,  that  he  discovered  the  spiritual  deso 
lation  of  his  time  and  country.  On  wild  and 
lonely  Mount  Hara,  near  Mecca,  he  received  his 
first  revelation,  and  from  that  deserted  and  re 
mote  elevation  he  went  forth  proclaiming  to  an 
idolatrous  world  the  One  God  of  Islamism. 

Apuleius  tells  us,  in  his  "Golden  Ass,"  that  he 
was  able  to  pray  to  the  Goddess  Isis  because  of 
the  silence  of  the  night.  The  great  prayers  of 
all  ages  and  of  all  religions  have  demanded 
tranquillity  of  spirit;  they  were  possible  only  in 
the  hush  of  a  calm  and  undisturbed  temper  to 


SILENCE  133 

which  the  stillness  of  surrounding  nature  in  many 
cases  contributed  much.  Prayer  is  the  very  heart 
of  religion.  There  can  be  no  religion  without 
this  inner  communion  of  the  soul  with  God. 
What  is  called  "natural  religion"  is,  in  so  far 
as  it  is  prayerless,  no  religion  at  all.  Religion 
without  prayer  is  only  philosophy,  and  has  noth 
ing  whatever  to  do  with  the  deep  places  of  spir 
itual  experience.  Can  anyone  think  of  such 
prayers  as  those  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  Epictetus, 
Saint  Bernard,  Loyola,  Fox,  Wesley,  and  George 
Miiller  in  connection  with  natural  religion? 
Great  achievements  are  born  of  a  deep  serenity 
of  the  soul.  Our  Saviour  was  most  of  the  time 
during  the  evenings  of  the  last  week  of  his  life 
alone.  He  sought  the  silence  of  mountain  and 
wilderness,  and  wandered  about  among  the  olive- 
groves  and  the  gardens,  his  soul  coming  into 
closer  and  closer  relations  with  the  Heavenly  Fa 
ther.  Max  Miiller  calls  religion  "a  perception  of 
the  Infinite."  Herbert  Spencer  tells  us  that  re 
ligion  is  "awe  in  the  presence  of  the  majesty  of  an 
inscrutable  power  in  the  universe."  Dr.  Lyman 
Abbott  has,  I  think,  come  even  closer  to  the  mean 
ing  of  the  word;  he  tells  us  that  "religion  is  the 
play  of  the  Infinite  on  the  finite  in  the  moral 
realm."  Is  it  not  "the  life  of  God  in  the  soul 
of  man?"  And  is  not  that  life  one  of  repose  in 
light,  of  which  serenity  is  an  essential  element? 

The  material  that  seems  so  substantial  passes 
away;  only  the  things  that  pertain  to  the  spir 
itual  nature  endure.  Tyre  and  Sidon  were  cities 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

of  wealth  and  splendor;  they  bought  and  sold, 
and  their  streets  were  lined  with  stately  palaces : — 

"Where  now  are  the  ships  of  Tarshish,  the  mighty 
ships  of  Tyre?" 

The  poet  answers  his  own  question: 

"There  is  no  habitation;  the  mansions  are  defaced. 
No  mariners  of  Sidon  unfurl  your  mighty  sails; 
No    workmen    fell    the    fir-trees    that    grow    in 

Shenir's  vales, 
And  Bashan's  oaks  that  boasted  a  thousand  years 

of  sun, 
Or  hew  the  masts  of  cedar  on  frosty  Lebanon." 

Athens  taught  the  world,  and  to-day  the  world 
acknowledges  her  supremacy.  The  Parthenon  is 
but  a  ruin,  yet  the  Greek  spirit  lives,  and  will  live 
so  long  as  men  are  ruled  by  the  mind  and  not  by 
the  body.  "Still  Greece  is  queen:  still  Greece  is 
goddess.  A  counting  house  passes  away :  a  school 
remains.  What  man  or  city  lives  by  bread  alone 
must  perish." 

But  while  it  is  true  that  the  things  of  the  mind 
come  first  and  are  of  the  greater  importance; 
while  it  is  true  that  the  poet's  prayer  that  God 
would  give,  were  it  only  for  a  brief  season,  a 
mind  "crystal  clear  as  the  blue  sky"  is  a  worthy 
one,  still  it  is  a  great  mistake  to  educate  at  ran 
dom.  It  is  a  grave  error  to  so  educate  young 
men  and  young  women  that  they  must  be  forever 
after  unhappy  in  the  humble  places  they  are  called 
to  fill.  Education  alone  will  confer  neither  recti- 


SILENCE  135 

tude  nor  happiness.  It  is  not  true  that  knowl 
edge  is  power  at  all  times  and  in  all  places.  It 
has  rendered  many  a  man  both  weak  and 
miserable.  We  all  remember  the  story  of  the 
blacksmith.  His  eyes  were  opened  to  the  risks 
he  was  incurring  in  his  impromptu  and  rude 
surgical  operations,  and  never  again  could  he 
be  persuaded  to  do  the  work  he  had  been  so  ready 
to  do  before  he  had  been  taught  the  nature  and 
possible  results  of  those  surgical  operations. 
Festus  said  to  Paul,  "Much  learning  doth  make 
thee  mad."  He  was  mistaken,  and  yet  beyond 
all  doubt  much  learning  has  more  than  once  over 
thrown  reason.  There  are  too  many  helps  up 
ward,  and  not  enough  methods  of  getting  rid  of 
the  ignorant  and  worthless.  Huxley  is  right  in 
advising  us  to  take  away  artificial  props.  Let 
the  stupid  and  incompetent  descend.  So  long  as 
labor-unions  and  unions  of  various  kinds  can 
secure  for  good  and  bad  work  the  same  compen 
sation  there  will  be  no  good  work  of  any  kind. 

Thousands  of  young  men  have  no  use  for 
"higher  education."  To  them  such  education  is 
not  a  blessing  but  a  curse.  The  training  should 
be  fitted  to  the  station  in  life.  We  are  in  no 
pressing  need  of  poets,  artists,  and  songsters. 
Hundreds  of  men  are  starving  in  all  three  call 
ings.  We  want  good  mechanics,  and  men  who 
are  able  and  willing  to  work  in  useful  occupations. 
But  republican  institutions  are  not  favorable  to 
service  of  any  kind.  Where  all  are  equal  no  man 
or  woman  is  willing  to  be  a  servant.  The  very 


136  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

name  is  despised.  The  cook,  the  chambermaid, 
and  the  laundress  are  insulted  when  you  describe 
them  as  servants.  The  ash-man  has  become  trans 
mogrified  into  an  ash-gentleman,  and  the  sales 
woman  must  be  addressed  as  saleslady. 

We  are  a  rude  and  noisy  nation,  self-assertive, 
over-fond  of  the  dollar,  and  impatient  of  delay 
in  arriving  at  results.  No  doubt  we  have  stalwart 
virtues  and  many  generous  instincts,  but  we  are 
a  young  nation,  and  have  the  faults  of  youth, 
with  some  other  faults  that  are  not  peculiar  to 
early  life.  If  we  ever  come  to  anything  like  the 
culture  of  older  nations  it  must  be  through  the 
same  channel  of  escape  of  which  they  availed 
themselves.  As  there  are,  as  has  been  pointed  out, 
many  words  in  our  language  that  by  their  sound 
suggest  their  meaning,  so  there  are  words  that  by 
their  derivation  suggest  the  spirit  that  gave  them 
currency.  Our  word  "hurrah,"  which  some  de 
rive  from  one  root  and  some  from  another,  has 
been  thought  to  mean  etymologically  "to  whirl." 
There  is  a  sense  of  rotary  motion  in  the  sound 
of  the  word.  Later  research  derives  it  from  a 
Turkish  term,  meaning  "to  kill."  It  is  in  reality 
a  battle-cry,  full  of  sound  and  fury.  In  the  days 
of  the  Crusades  the  shout  "hurrah"  betokened 
and  presaged  dire  slaughter.  What  a  word  it 
is  that  we  as  a  people  have  adopted  to  signify 
national  enthusiasm  and  public  applause.  Com 
pare  it  with  the  gentle  "banzai"  (success)  of  the 
Japanese.  When  I  was  in  Germany  I  was  aston 
ished  at  the  great  love  of  art,  and  especially  of 


SILENCE  137 

music,  which  the  people  at  all  times  manifested. 
The  arts  go  together.  Music  leads  on  to  archi 
tecture,  and  these  two  are  never  far  away  from 
painting  and  sculpture.  We  as  a  nation  have 
accomplished  little  with  any  of  the  fine  arts.  We 
shall  never  accomplish  much  with  them  unless  we 
acquire  a  more  tranquil  spirit. 

Music,  though  a  fine  art,  and  closely  related  to 
all  the  fine  arts,  is  still  in  a  way  very  different 
from  painting  and  sculpture,  as  Professor  Jules 
Combarieu  has  pointed  out  in  his  "Music,  its 
Laws  and  Evolution." 

"Music  is  the  only  popular  art.  It  draws  its  sub 
stance  from  social  life,  as  a  plant  draws  its  substance 
from  the  soil  into  which  its  roots  plunge.  There  is 
no  popular  painting,  no  popular  sculpture.  Archi 
tecture  is  too  complicated  an  art,  too  loaded  with 
technical  knowledge  and  archaeology,  and  too  much 
subjected  to  the  prejudices  of  luxury  or  to  special 
needs,  to  be  the  spontaneous  product  of  a  com 
munity.  To  music  alone,  and  to  its  younger  sister, 
poetry,  belongs  this  privilege. 

"Such  are  the  principles  we  shall  elucidate  when 
reviewing  different  peoples  and  ages.  Taking  as 
our  basis  the  first  proposition,  that  music  is  the  art 
of  thinking  in  sounds,  we  shall  reserve  to  ourselves 
the  right  of  adding  this,  which  is  founded  on  ob 
servation:  Musical  thought  is  the  manifestation  of  a 
general  and  deep  instinct,  more  or  less  hidden,  but 
everywhere  recognisable  in  humanity." 

After  the  above  statement  we  have  this  summary : 


138  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

"Music — a  synthesis  of  sounds  not  to  be  confused 
with  purely  sonorous  phenomena — has  a  meaning  un 
translatable  into  verbal  language;  it  is  formed  by  a 
thought  without  concepts,  rhythmically  constructed, 
of  which  we  cannot  anywhere  find  the  equivalent." 

Referring  again  to  the  subject  of  music,  it  is 
worth  while  to  remember  in  this  connection  the 
part  music  plays  in  the  expression  of  the  emo 
tions.  Music  is  the  modern  method  of  giving 
utterance  to  whatever  is  finest  in  feeling  and  in 
the  emotions.  It  was  through  plastic  art  that 
the  ancients  voiced  the  deep  experiences,  the  hopes, 
desires,  and  forebodings  of  the  human  heart. 
The  mediaeval  world  made  use  of  painting  for 
the  same  end.  Each  art  has  its  own  peculiar 
excellence,  but  of  them  all  music  is  certainly  the 
finest, — the  most  ethereal  and  delicate.  The  finer 
the  physical  organization,  the  more  offensive  the 
corruption  that  takes  place  in  that  organization 
after  death.  The  decay  of  a  human  body  is 
much  more  loathsome  than  is  the  disintegration 
of  the  body  of  one  of  the  lower  animals.  So  is 
it  also  with  the  arts.  The  finer  the  art,  the  more 
distressing  is  its  degradation.  President  Lowell 
of  Harvard  University  thinks  that  in  the  United 
States  music  is  suffering  a  progressive  degenera 
tion.  He  said  in  an  address  before  the  Music 
Teachers'  National  Association  in  the  winter  of 
1910,  at  Boston: 

"One  can  hardly  fail  to  be  struck  by  the  pro 
gressive  degeneration  of  the  popular  taste  in  music. 


SILENCE  139 

We  have  music — good  music.  The  taste  of  culti 
vated  people  in  Boston  has  been  immensely  helped 
by  the  Symphony  Orchestra.  But  what  I  refer  to 
is  the  popular  taste  in  music.  This  means  not  only 
the  great  mass,  but  even  educated  people  who  make 
no  pretense  of  knowing  music." 

"Our  people  are  totally  deficient  in  the  power  of 
expressing  any  of  the  finer  qualities  of  emotion  in 
common.  Their  effort  takes  a  conventional  form 
which  is  barren,  meagre  and  poor.  The  most  ef 
fective  and  natural  form  of  expressing  emotion  is 
music.  The  place  of  real  expression  of  emotion  at 
alumni  dinners  has  been  taken  by  organized  cheer 
ing.  That  shows  that  men  who  have  the  highest 
education  we  can  give  are  wholly  lacking  in  those 
more  delicate  qualities  of  expressing  emotion. 

"I  speak  advisedly  when  I  say  progressive  degen 
eration.  For  thirty  years  expression  has  become 
shallower  and  feebler.  There  was  practically  no 
cheering  when  I  was  in  college.  If  we  are  right  in 
saying  that  music  is  the  natural  form  of  expressing 
emotion  at  the  present  day,  this  present  condition  of 
music  is  a  sign  that  educated  people  as  a  rule  have 
no  emotions  that  are  worth  expressing  or  that  they 
are  signally  deficient  in  the  art  of  expressing  emo 
tion.  The  latter,  I  think,  is  true." 

To  plunder  music  of  its  sweet  and  gracious 
ministry  to  the  finer  side  of  man's  nature  is  to 
rob  the  heart  of  one  of  its  greatest  treasures. 
It  is  to  defile  a  sacred  thing.  Rude  and  vulgar 
songs  that  catch  the  ear,  and  that  require  no 
cultivation  of  any  kind,  are  the  foes  of  all  good 


140  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

music.     President  Lowell  said  in  the  address  from 
which  we  have  already  quoted: 

"One  of  the  saddest  things  is  to  go  into  a  gather 
ing  of  college  men  or  even  alumni  and  hear  the 
kind  of  music  they  have  at  their  dinners.  It  is 
ragtime  and  ragtime  of  very  poor  quality.  They 
seem  to  care  very  little  for  good  music.  What  they 
want  is  a  catchy  song,  something  they  can  join  in 
after  exhausting  their  voices  in  organized  cheering. 
Of  all  the  means  of  expressing  emotion,  organized 
cheering  is  the  worst  from  every  point  of  view.  It 
is  bad  for  the  throat  for  one  thing.  It  has  less 
modulation,  less  means  of  expressing  degrees  and 
varieties  of  emotion  of  any  kind  than  any  other 
form  of  expression  except  a  fog  horn." 

Every  word  in  the  above  paragraph  is  true. 
Could  any  concurrence  of  tuneful  sounds  be  more 
rude  than  is  the  variety  called,  most  fittingly, 
"rag-time"  music?  Think  of  a  hundred  or  more 
young  men  from  a  university  or  a  seminary  of 
learning  of  whatever  kind  giving  expression  to 
their  feelings  in  music  of  that  sort.  Think  of 
those  young  men  screaming  out  in  shrill  tones 
the  "college  yell,"  which  is  nothing  but  a  suc 
cession  of  meaningless  noises ;  brutal  sound  sug 
gestive  of  animal  excitement  and  nothing  more. 
The  uneducated  human  voice,  whether  displayed 
in  "rag-time"  songs,  the  college  yell,  the  Indian 
war-whoop,  or  in  those  strident  tones  that  mark 
the  low-born  everywhere,  is  distressing  to  the  cul 
tivated  mind  and  ear.  There  is  in  it  no  thought 


SILENCE 

of  anything  like  courtesy,  training,  or  fine  feel 
ing. 

A  writer  in  the  Interstate  Medical  Journal  for 
December,  1910,  expresses  himself  thus: 

"We  are  now  speaking  of  the  American  voice, 
which  has  a  chromatic  scale  no  other  voice  possesses, 
and  so  many  irritating  qualities  that,  were  a  nerve 
removed  from  the  healthiest  body  and  subjected  to 
the  pricking  of  its  many  stridencies,  we  are  quite 
sure  it  would  wriggle  at  once  with  an  activity  that 
could  not  be  interpreted  as  aught  but  a  mild  pro 
test.  Now,  can  it  be  said  that  an  occasional  noise 
such  as  emanates  from  a  motor  car,  a  street  car,  or 
from  a  factory  whistle,  can  play  the  same  havoc 
with  our  powers  of  resistance  that  is  effected  by 
the  uninterrupted  iteration  of  a  noise  that  follows 
us  even  into  the  sanctity  of  our  homes?  Surely, 
the  American  voice  as  it  falls  upon  our  ears  must 
make  for  so  tight  a  clutch  on  our  nerves  that  the 
combined  effect  of  all  other  noises  dwindles  into 
comparative  insignificance." 

"Let  us  allow  our  friend  to  go  to  his  favorite 
haunts  in  search  of  the  cure  his  tortured  nerves  de 
mand — those  nerves  that  unwittingly  subjected 
themselves  throughout  the  day  to  all  the  city  noises, 
including  the  ubiquitous  and  omnipresent  vocal 
harshness  in  street  and  business  houses — and  what 
alleviation  of  his  perturbed  condition  is  effected? 
Again  he  hears  tones  that  soothe  not,  sounds  that 
seem  to  issue  from  the  top  of  the  head  after  cir 
cuitous  journeys  through  the  narrowest  of  passages, 
and  a  vocalism  that  is  so  high-pitched  that  all  its 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

nasalities  act  upon  his  sensitiveness  as  would  pin 
pricks.  Still  ignorant  of  the  reason  why  his  spirits 
continue  to  be  ruffled  he  wanders  homeward,  and  the 
peace  that  comes  to  his  tired  brain  during  sleep  is 
again  rudely  jarred." 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  substantiate  the 
statement  made  by  President  Lowell  with  regard 
to  the  selection  of  popular  and  inferior  music 
for  the  entertainment  of  guests  at  receptions  and 
public  gatherings.  Here  is  the  programme  of 
musical  pieces  rendered  during  a  reception  given 
by  Governor  Dix  of  New  York  at  the  official 
mansion  in  Albany,  a  few  hours  after  his  in 
auguration.  The  pieces  are  not  what  would  be 
called  "rag-time,"  but  surely  they  are  not  clas 
sical,  nor  are  they  even  elegant: 

March — Bunch  of  Roses Chapi 

Selection — Madame  Sherry Hoschna 

Potpouri— The  Girl  in  the  Train Fall 

Fantasia — Bright  Eyes Klein 

Gems  from  Naughty  Marietta Herbert 

Medley— Remick's   Hits Redfield 

Intermezzo — Pensee  D'Amour Latan 

Selection — Dollar  Princess Spink 

Valse  Lente — Cupid's  Caress Roberts 

Finale— Tales  of  Hoffman Offenbach 

To  the  finely  organized  temperament  of  Scho 
penhauer  the  foolish  conversations  of  uninformed 
and  thoughtless  persons  brought  not  only  weari 
ness  but  great  vexation  of  spirit.  "Conversation 
with  others,"  said  the  uncompromising  thinker, 


SILENCE  143 

"leaves  an  unpleasant  tang;  the  employment  of 
the  soul  in  itself  leaves  an  agreeable  echo." 
Again  he  said,  "The  jabber  of  companies  of 
men  is  as  profitless  as  the  idle  yelping  of  packs 
of  hounds."  So  also,  in  his  little  hut  on  Walden 
Pond,  thought  the  poet  and  naturalist,  Henry 
David  Thoreau.  He  would  pass  entire  days  in 
silent  communion  with  Nature.  Whatever  of 
noise  and  bustle  in  life  forced  itself  upon  Scho 
penhauer  utterly  failed  of  reaching  his  secret 
soul.  There  is  something  sad  to  the  ordinary 
man  in  the  thought  of  living  alone,  especially 
as  age  advances,  and  even  more  sad  is  it  to  die 
alone, — to  pass  silently  into  the  everlasting  si 
lence  unattended  and  with  no  friend  at  hand. 
But  Schopenhauer  was  not  an  ordinary  man. 
He  died  as  he  had  lived,  with  his  ears  closed  to  the 
babble  of  empty  voices.  Aristotle  reports  that 
Satyrus  stopped  his  ears  with  wax  when  he  was  to 
plead  a  cause  so  that  he  might  not  be  thrown  off 
his  guard  by  the  retorts  of  enemies.  Schopen 
hauer  was  determined  that  the  powers  of  his  mind 
should  not  be  frittered  away  by  foolish  speech. 
To  the  end  he  resisted  vain  conversation  and 
empty  noise,  and  he  died  as  he  had  lived.  The 
physician  who  attended  him  stepped  from  the 
room,  and  returned  after  but  a  minute  or  two. 
On  his  return  he  found  the  philosopher  dead. 
Sitting  in  the  corner  of  the  sofa,  with  a  smile 
upon  his  face,  his  still  open  eyes  gazed  as  if  he 
were  alive  upon  the  gilded  statuette  of  the  Buddha 
upon  the  mantel-piece.  A  great  treasure  to 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

Schopenhauer  was  a  copy  of  the  Upanishads 
(the  Latin  translation  of  Anquetil  Duperron, 
which  was  published  at  Strassburg  in  1802). 
The  system  advanced  in  that  work  is,  as  all  read 
ers  know,  one  of  pantheism.  I  have  often  won 
dered  at  the  strong  hold  this  system,  in  one  form 
or  another,  has  upon  superior  minds.  Of  the 
Upanishads  he  wrote:  "It  is  the  most  profita 
ble  and  the  most  elevating  reading  which  (the 
original  text  excepted)  is  possible  in  the  world. 
It  has  been  the  consolation  of  my  life,  and  it  will 
be  the  consolation  of  my  death."  Standing  by 
Schopenhauer's  grave  in  the  cemetery  at  Frank 
fort,  I  thought  of  the  little  band  of  remarkable 
men  who  gathered  about  that  grave  the  early 
spring  day  when  our  philosopher  was  laid  to 
rest.  "There  is  something,"  said  one  of  them, 
"that  tells  us  he  has  found  satisfaction  for  his 
solitude."  Let  us  hope  that  so  strange  a  jour 
ney  ended  at  last  in  peace.  Commenting  upon 
the  burial  of  Schopenhauer,  my  friend  of  earlier 
days  with  whom  I  have  passed  many  pleasant 
hours,  and  who  himself  now  rests  beneath  the 
hallowed  shades  of  Mount  Auburn,  William 
Rounseville  Alger,  said  in  his  "Genius  of  Soli 
tude,"  "If  the  Christian  heaven  be  a  verity,  he 
is  there  with  the  Saviour  who  revealed  the  God  of 
the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son.  ...  If 
that  heaven  be  only  the  dream  he  thought  it,  then 
he  is  where  he  aspired  to  be,  with  Kapila,  Sakya 
Muni,  and  the  other  conquering  kings  of  mind, 


SILENCE  145 

blent  in  the  unknown  destiny  of  the  All,  clasped 
in  the  fruition  of  Nirwana." 

"As  the  truest  society  approaches  always 
nearer  to  solitude,"  wrote  Thoreau  in  his  "Con 
cord  and  Merrimack  Rivers,"  "so  the  most  ex 
cellent  speech  finally  falls  into  silence.  Silence 
is  audible  to  all  men,  at  all  times,  and  in  all 
places.  .  .  .  All  sounds  are  her  servants  and 
purveyors,  proclaiming  not  only  that  their  mis 
tress  is,  but  is  a  rare  mistress,  and  earnestly  to 
be  sought  after." 

Plutarch  has  recorded  that  the  citizens  of 
Athens  upon  a  certain  occasion  gave  a  feast  and 
thereto  invited  the  ambassadors  of  the  King  of 
Persia.  The  conversation  was  most  animated. 
Much  wine  loosened  many  tongues,  and  things 
that  should  not  have  been  even  hinted  at  were 
freely  discussed.  Zeno,  the  Stoic,  was  present, 
but  he  remained  so  quiet  that  many  were  unaware 
of  his  presence.  Surprised  at  his  silence,  the 
guests  pressed  him  to  drink.  When,  after  sev 
eral  cups,  he  still  remained  silent,  the  ambassa 
dors,  who  were  well  acquainted  with  his  reputa 
tion  for  learning,  enquired  of  Zeno  what  report 
they  should  make  to  their  Royal  Master.  The 
sage  replied,  "Say  there  was  an  old  man  in 
Athens  who  could  hold  his  tongue."  It  is  a 
great  thing  to  be  able  to  control  so  unruly  a 
member.  Genius  is  often  associated  with  silence, 
but  never  with  loquacity.  Learning  makes  no 
noise.  Brass  bands  and  tinsel  indicate  a  low 
order  of  intelligence.  Yet  multitudes  are  de- 


146  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

ceived  by  sound  and  fury,  and  follow  without 
thought  the  popular  hero  until  in  time  he  ex 
plodes  and  there  is  an  end  of  him.  Silence  is  a 
vast  ocean  into  which  at  last  all  the  discordant 
streams  of  speech  find  rest.  No  one  associates 
Eternity  with  the  thought  of  noise.  The  poets 
describe  its  vast  expanse,  voiceless  and  serene,  as 
the  end  of  all  the  rush  and  tumult  of  man's  little 
life  on  earth.  The  philosophers  go  more  deeply 
into  the  science  of  the  subject,  though,  doubtless, 
even  they  might  learn  some  things  of  more  or  less 
importance  from  their  romantic  neighbors  the 
poets,  who  sing  the  truth  into  our  hearts  while, 
more  laboriously,  these  toiling  sons  of  the  earth 
discourse  to  our  understanding  in  the  duller  terms 
of  the  intellect. 

Preyer  defines  silence  as  a  state  of  uniform 
minimum  excitation  of  the  auditory  nerve-fibres, 
and  joins  issue  with  Fechner  and  others  who  deny 
its  claim  to  be  regarded  as  a  positive  form  of 
sensation  at  all.  Fechner  distinguishes  between 
the  effect  of  absence  of  light  upon  the  eye,  and 
that  of  absence  of  sound  upon  the  ear;  black  he 
regards  as  a  sensation,  silence  as  an  absence  of 
all  sensation.  Preyer  points  out,  on  the  con 
trary,  that  the  two  cases  are  in  every  way  anal 
ogous,  and  that  the  auditory  organ  never  sinks, 
any  more  than  the  retina,  below  the  zero  of  sen 
sation.  The  pressure  of  the  fluid  contents  of  the 
labyrinth,  and  the  flow  of  blood  through  the 
vessels,  must  give  rise  to  sensations  of  which  we 
are  unconscious  only  because  of  their  uniform- 


SILENCE  147 

ity,  their  constancy,  and  their  low  degree  of 
intensity.  Silence,  when  the  attention  is  con 
centrated  on  the  sense  of  hearing,  is  found  to 
vary  in  degree,  just  as  the  blackness  of  the  visual 
field,  when  light  is  excluded  from  the  eye,  has 
been  observed  to  vary;  but  the  complete  absence 
of  sensation  is  obviously  incapable  of  varying. 


IV 

NOBLE  DEEDS  OF  HUMBLE  MEN 

"So  nigh  is  grandeur  to  our  dust, 

So  near  is  God  to  man, 
When  Duty  whispers  low,  'Thou  must/ 
The  youth  replies,  'I  can !'  " 

— Emerson. 

"Among  the  Germans  of  the  forest,  when  a  young 
man  came  of  age,  he  was  solemnly  invested  with 
shield  and  spear.  The  ceremony  of  Knighthood  at 
first  was  nothing  more.  Every  man  of  gentle  birth 
became  a  knight,  and  then  took  an  oath  to  be  true  to 
God  and  to  the  ladies  and  to  his  plighted  word;  to 
be  honorable  in  all  his  actions;  to  succor  the  op 
pressed." 

— The  Martyrdom  of  Man. 


NOBLE  DEEDS  OF  HUMBLE  MEN 

IT  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  a  book 
chronicling  the  deeds  of  courage  and  self- 
sacrifice  that  are  constantly  performed  by  men 
and  women  in  humble  stations  and  in  out-of-the- 
way  places  in  life  would  be  well  worth  writing. 
When  I  prepared  the  chapter  on  "Heroes  of 
Humble  Life"  in  my  volume  "The  Companion 
ship  of  Books,"  1  I  had  in  mind  some  such  work, 
and  I  viewed  the  chapter  as  an  experiment  in 
that  direction.  The  thought  was  never  followed 
up,  and  yet  so  great  has  been  my  interest  in  the 
matter  that  I  have  from  time  to  time  clipped  from 
the  daily  papers  articles  and  paragraphs  that 
seemed  to  me  to  record  in  striking  terms  the  noble 
and  daring  exploits  of  obscure  men  and  women. 
A  book  of  the  kind,  extended  to  three  or  even 
four  hundred  pages,  could  not  but  increase  one's 
respect  for  our  human  race,  and  reassure  the  soul 
in  moments  of  discouragement  and  despondency. 
The  heart-breaking  selfishness  of  the  world  is  too 
dense  and  extended  to  be  ignored,  and  yet  there 
is  another  side  to  both  individual  and  social  life. 
Paragraphs  such  as  those  about  which  I  am  now 
writing  show,  often  in  beautiful  colors  and  high 
relief,  the  intrinsic  nobleness  and  magnificent 
possibilities  of  human  nature.  They  make  it 
clear  that  the  disinterested  spirit  and  heroic 
temper  of  earlier  ages,  which  we  so  greatly  ad- 

i  Published  by  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New  York,  1906. 
151 


152  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

mire,  are  not  dead;  and  that  all  about  us  are 
men  and  women  of  heroic  proportions,  though  of 
obscure  and  lowly  life.  The  hour  still  finds  the 
man  awaiting  the  divine  call;  and  Duty  is  as 
cheerfully  performed  now  as  it  was  in  the  earlier 
centuries  when  cruelty,  oppression,  and  persecu 
tion  inspired  fortitude  and  increased  the  power  of 
faith. 

Take  for  instance  the  splendid  heroism  of  an 
Alpine  guide  who  something  like  ten  years  ago 
proved  himself,  in  all  that  makes  a  chivalrous 
and  fearless  manhood,  the  equal  of  the  bravest 
soldier  who  ever  faced  the  foe  on  field  or  flood. 
Professor  Nasse  was  well-known,  not  only  in 
Berlin,  where  was  his  home,  but  throughout  the 
scientific  world,  as  one  of  the  most  intrepid  and 
successful  mountain  climbers.  With  Dr.  Boch- 
ardt,  a  man  of  like  fame  and  spirit,  and  two 
guides,  Professor  Nasse  ascended  one  of  the 
most  difficult  of  all  the  Alpine  peaks.  The  four 
men  roped  together  were  crossing  the  Piz  Baine, 
on  their  return  from  their  climb.  The  guides 
considered  a  snow  bridge  before  them  perfectly 
safe,  and  accordingly  the  four  men  proceeded 
to  cross  it,  when  suddenly  it  gave  way  and  the 
leading  guide  and  Professor  Nasse  fell  into  the 
crevasse.  Nasse  had  the  rope  around  his  chest 
and  hung  in  mid-air.  The  strain  upon  his  chest 
was  very  great,  and  it  was  evident  that  life  could 
not  be  long  sustained  unless  the  pressure  could 
be  in  some  measure  lightened. 

For  half  an  hour  man  and  guide  hung  sus- 


NOBLE  DEEDS  OF  HUMBLE  MEN      153 

pended  thus  in  mid-air,  the  guide  bringing  all 
his  weight  to  bear  upon  the  chest  of  Professor 
Nasse.  The  guide  could  have  hung  there  till 
rescued,  but  every  moment  brought  death  nearer 
to  Nasse»  This  the  guide  fully  understood. 
Bravely,  without  hesitation,  he  deliberately  drew 
from  his  belt  the  knife  which  he  always  carried, 
and  cut  the  rope  that  bound  him  to  Professor 
Nasse.  In  an  instant  the  pressure  was  removed, 
and  Nasse  swung  free,  but  alas!  he  was  dead. 
That  the  guide,  of  course,  could  not  have  known, 
as  the  pressure  of  the  rope  prevented  Nasse  from 
speaking.  As  a  stone  drops  into  an  abyss,  so 
the  guide  plunged  into  the  depths  below  and  dis 
appeared.  The  other  guide  and  Dr.  Bochardt 
were  now  able  to  pull  the  body  of  Nasse  up. 
Many  hours  later  the  hero  who  had  faced  death 
so  bravely  was  found  uninjured.  He  struck  in 
his  descent  a  mass  of  soft  snow  that  covered  a 
ledge  of  ice,  and  so  broke  the  force  of  a  fall  of 
more  than  fifteen  hundred  feet. 

No  one  can  read  of  an  act  like  that,  performed 
in  the  face  of  almost  certain  death,  by  an  obscure 
guide,  without  realizing  that  the  heroic  elements 
in  our  common  humanity  are  very  far  from  being 
extinct.  Alas,  that  the  deed  should  be  so  soon 
forgotten!  Less  valorous  exploits  of  distin 
guished  military  leaders  are  recorded  upon  the 
page  of  history,  and  are  celebrated  in  song  and 
story,  but  we  do  not  even  know  the  name  of  the 
noble  and  intrepid  guide. 

Only  seven  years  ago,  William  Phelps,  of  Rich- 


154  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

mond,  Kentucky,  and  James  Stansbury,  of  In 
dianapolis,  were  cleaning  the  interior  of  an  eight- 
foot  upright  boiler  in  the  Cerealine  Mills.  They 
were  humble  men  who  earned  a  meagre  living. 
No  one  dreamed  that  under  a  red  flannel  shirt 
of  the  cheapest  quality,  and  not  over  clean  at 
that,  beat  the  lion-heart  of  as  noble  a  hero  as 
ever  breathed  the  breath  of  life.  While  the  two 
men  were  working  an  employee  turned  on  the 
steam,  thinking  the  cock  was  tight;  it  leaked, 
and  the  scalding  steam  poured  in  on  the  two  men. 
The  only  exit  was  up  a  ladder  to  a  man-hole 
in  the  top.  Both  jumped  for  the  ladder. 
Phelps  reached  it  first,  took  one  step  and  stopped. 
He  sprang  aside  and  shouted:  "You  first,  Jim; 
you  are  married,  and  I  have  no  wife  and  no 
children  dependent  upon  my  toil."  Stansbury 
escaped,  but  Phelps,  standing  aside  for  the  sake 
of  the  wife  and  the  little  children,  was  cooked  to 
death. 

Over  the  body  of  General  John  E.  Wool,  in 
Oakwood  cemetery,  Troy,  N.  Y.,  stands,  visible 
for  miles  around,  the  tallest  monolith  that  art 
ever  shaped  in  this  country  for  either  the  living 
or  the  dead.  I  never  heard  that  any  costly  mon 
ument  was  erected  over  the  grave  of  William 
Phelps  to  commemorate  a  holy  deed  of  most  beau 
tiful  heroism  and  Christ-like  love.  No  doubt 
Wool  was  a  brave  soldier,  and  will  be  remembered 
in  history  as  he  should  be;  but  to  my  thinking, 
nothing  in  all  his  military  career  compares  in 


NOBLE  DEEDS  OF  HUMBLE  MEN      155 

splendor  with  the  brave  deed  and  noble  death  of 
that  obscure  workman. 

There  lives  unknown  save  for  a  few  newspaper 
paragraphs,  in  Morristown,  New  Jersey,  a  crip 
ple  named  Joe  Gilligan,  who  ten  years  ago  was 
run  over  by  a  trolley  car  in  Brooklyn.  One  leg 
was  cut  off  above  the  knee  and  the  other  below 
the  knee,  and  his  right  arm  was  also  amputated. 
A  poor  mutilated  body  is  that  of  Joe  Gilligan, 
but  it  holds  the  noble  and  beautiful  soul  of  a 
true  hero  worthy  of  a  place  with  the  bravest  and 
best.  June  the  nineteenth,  in  the  year  nineteen 
hundred  and  eight,  that  wreck  of  a  human  body 
swam  out  in  Gravel  Pit  pond  and  saved  the  lives 
of  two  children  who  had  overturned  their  boat 
and  were  drowning.  Joe  was  sitting  with  other 
boys  under  a  tree  out  of  sight  of  the  pond.  He 
had  removed  his  artificial  legs  and  was  showing 
them  to  several  lads,  when  he  heard  the  frantic 
call  for  help.  To  that  call  he  responded  in 
stantly.  He  had  no  time  to  put  on  his  wooden 
legs,  but  running  as  he  had  learned  to  do  upon 
his  stumps,  Joe  made  his  way  to  the  pond,  shout 
ing,  "Hold  fast !  I'm  coming !"  He  swam  out, 
grasped  the  two  boys  and  pulled  them  apart. 
With  the  one  hand — it  was  all  he  had — he  held 
one  boy  above  the  water  and  managed  to  get  him 
ashore.  Then  he  returned  and  caught  the  other 
boy  just  as  he  was  relaxing  his  hold  upon  the 
overturned  boat  and  was  slipping  into  the  water. 
He  saved  both  the  children  who,  after  they  had 


156  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

revived,  picked  up  the  poor,  little  mutilated  body 
and  carried  it  with  grateful  tears  to  its  humble 
home. 

I  have  in  a  drawer  to  my  study  table  a  number 
of  newspaper  clippings,  all  of  which  are  radi 
antly  beautiful  with  like  stories  of  nobleness  and 
daring.  Another  lad,  only  fourteen  years  of 
age  at  the  time,  saved  six  drowning  persons,  and 
then  refused  to  give  his  name  to  the  reporter, 
saying:  "I  do  not  want  to  be  printed;  I  only 
did  my  duty."  His  name  should  be  remembered, 
and  though  he  withheld  it,  I  give  it  to  the  world 
— it  was  William  McGrane. 

The  story  of  the  heroism  of  Mrs.  Wilson,  who, 
in  1872,  after  her  husband  had  been  disabled,  as 
sumed  command  of  his  ship  and  brought  it  safely 
to  port  in  the  face  of  the  greatest  perils,  is  well 
worth  recording.  The  following  account  of  her 
exploit  was  printed  in  an  English  journal  in 
July,  1872 11 

"The  ship  Sharron,  1,800  tons,  of  St.  John,  N.  B., 
Wilson  master,  sailed  from  New  York  with  a  gen 
eral  cargo  on  February  14,  1872,  bound  for  Liver 
pool.  She  encountered  a  terrific  gale  on  the  Banks 
of  Newfoundland,  the  cargo  shifted  and  the  ship 
was  hove  on  her  beam  ends.  A  terrible  sea  was 
running,  and  they  had  to  cut  away  masts  to  right 
the  ship.  The  mizzen-mast  broke  off  below  deck 
with  all  attached,  and  all  above  main-mast  gone. 
Captain  Wilson  had  his  shoulder  broken,  and  dis- 

i  Reprinted  in  the  New  York  Tribune,  Dec.  3,  1880. 


NOBLE  DEEDS  OF  HUMBLE  MEN      157 

located  his  collar-bone;  the  chief  officer  and  part 
of  the  crew  were  disabled. 

"Mrs.  Wilson,  wife  of  the  captain,  who  had  lived 
on  board  ship  with  her  husband  seven  years,  saw 
the  danger,  and  although  a  young  woman,  with  no 
captain  or  officer  to  depend  on,  assumed  charge, 
being  a  good  sailor  and  skillful  navigator.  The  men 
had  confidence  in  her  and  obeyed  her  commands,  and 
when  she  said,  'Boys,  our  lives  are  in  danger;  let  us 
stick  together,  and  all  of  us  work  with  a  will;  I 
will  take  my  husband's  place,  and  take  you  to  some 
port/  the  sailors  knew  our  heroine's  courage,  and 
said,  'Aye,  aye;  we  will  obey  to  a  man.*  The  men 
were  divided  into  four  watches;  pumps  were 
sounded,  and  the  ship  was  found  to  be  leaking  badly. 

"When  clear  of  the  wreckage,  our  heroine  shaped 
her  course  for  Bermuda.  Having  but  little  sail 
left,  and  only  a  foremast  complete,  she  rigged  up  a 
jurymast.  The  wind  headed  her  off  so  that  she 
could  not  make  the  harbor.  Her  husband  was  not 
able  to  assist  her  from  the  effects  of  his  injuries, 
but  they  held  a  consultation  and  deemed  it  best  to 
put  the  ship  before  the  wind  and  go  to  St.  Thomas, 
at  which  place  they  arrived  in  safety  on  March  13, 
being  twenty-one  days  that  our  heroine  had  charge 
of  the  ship  and  crew.  Many  heartfelt  prayers  went 
up  to  heaven  from  those  grateful  men — hard  toilers 
of  the  sea — that  land  was  reached  and  they  had 
been  saved  through  the  courage  of  a  woman. 

"On  reaching  St.  Thomas  Mrs.  Wilson  was  ad 
mired  by  all  for  her  courage  and  wonderful  pres 
ence  of  mind.  The  Sharron  was  repaired  at  St. 
Thomas  and  sailed  for  Liverpool  on  May  30. 
Mrs.  Wilson  was  the  recipient  of  an  elegant  gold 


158  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

chain  and  locket,  with  a  ship  in  full  sail  on  one 
side,  her  monogram  on  the  other,  presented  by  the 
English  Consul,  and  many  other  valuable  presents 
from  the  merchants  of  St.  Thomas.  On  her  de 
parture  flags  were  hoisted  on  every  flag-staff  on 
the  island,  cannons  were  fired  from  the  English 
Consul's  house  and  the  shipping  in  port  let  to  the 
breeze  all  their  bunting  in  honor  of  our  heroine. 
The  Sharron  arrived  in  Liverpool  June  30,  after  a 
pleasant  trip  of  thirty  days.  Mrs.  Wilson  was 
again  received  with  cheers,  and  in  her  honor  a 
dinner  was  given  in  the  North  Western  Hotel  on 
Lime  street,  where  about  seventy-five  guests  sat 
down.  After  dinner  she  was  presented  with  a 
purse  of  gold  and  numerous  presents  from  mer 
chants  and  friends  in  Liverpool." 

I  throw  out  a  suggestion  to  my  fellow  authors 
— why  not  collect  these  instances  of  nobleness 
and  daring  in  a  book  that  shall  have  permanence 
and  that  shall  be  an  inspiration  to  all  who  read 
its  pages.  A  Harvard  professor  once  pressed 
upon  my  attention  the  need  there  was  for  a 
Biographical  Dictionary  of  Unusual  Characters 
— a  sympathetic  and  just  dictionary.  I  think 
the  book  I  suggest  would  be  worth  more  to  the 
world. 

After  God,  human  nature  is  the  most  beautiful 
thing  of  which  we  bave  knowledge,  and  deeds 
such  as  I  have  instanced  in  this  brief  paper  help 
us  to  believe  what  it  is  not  always  easy  to  be 
lieve,  that  man,  with  all  his  sin  and  shame  and 
failure,  was  still  made  in  the  Divine  image,  and 
retains  that  image,  and  can  never  lose  it. 


THE  COLLEGE  AND  BUSINESS  LIFE 

"When  President  Walker,  it  must  be  now  nearly 
thirty  years  ago,  asked  me  in  common  with  my  col 
leagues  what  my  notion  of  a  university  was,  I  an 
swered,  'A  university  is  a  place  where  nothing  useful 
is  taught;  but  a  university  is  possible  only  where 
a  man  may  get  his  livelihood  by  digging  Sanscrit 
roots.'  What  I  meant  was  that  the  highest  office 
of  the  somewhat  complex  thing  so  named  was  to  dis 
tribute  the  true  Bread  of  Life,  the  pane  d'egli 
angeli,  as  Dante  called  it,  and  to  breed  an  appetite 
for  it;  but  it  should  also  have  the  means  and  appli 
ances  for  teaching  everything,  as  the  mediaeval  uni 
versities  aimed  to  do  in  their  trivium  and  quad- 
rivium."  — Lowell. 

"May  God  confound  thee  for  thy  theory  of  ir 
regular  verbs !" 

— An  Old  Grammarian's  Curse. 


THE  COLLEGE  AND  BUSINESS  LIFE 

rflHE  death  of  Marshall  Field,  at  the  Holland 
A  House,  in  the  city  of  New  York,  January 
16,  1906,  raises  the  question  of  the  utility  of 
a  college  education.  Mr.  Field  was  one  of  the 
greatest  among  the  famous  merchants  who  have 
acquired  colossal  fortunes  and  wielded  world 
wide  power.  He  began  life  in  a  very  humble 
way,  and  rose  to  a  position  of  commercial  impor 
tance  by  the  exercise  of  those  common  virtues 
which  we  so  easily  despise  but  which  are  abso 
lutely  essential  to  success  in  every  worthy  enter 
prise.  He  was  industrious,  patient,  and  faith 
ful,  and  to  these  good  qualities  he  added  sound 
judgment  and  business  courage.  He  was  the 
son  of  a  New  England  farmer,  and  his  early 
days  were  passed  in  a  little  village  in  Western 
Massachusetts.  Some  education  he  had  from 
the  public  school  and  a  local  academy,  but  he 
never  prepared  for  college,  and  was  acquainted 
with  only  such  popular  literature  as  naturally 
attracts  the  youthful  mind  whatever  may  be  the 
poverty  of  its  surroundings  and  the  meagreness 
of  its  advantages.  When  the  lad  was  seventeen 
years  old  he  commenced  his  business  career  in 
a  shop  at  Pittsfield,  Mass.,  where  he  remained 
four  years.  At  the  age  of  twenty-one  he  went 
to  Chicago,  and  he  there  continued  in  business  up 
to  the  time  of  his  death,  which  occurred  soon  after 
he  had  passed  his  seventy-first  birthday.  When 
161 


162  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

he  was  forty-six  years  old  he  was  able  to  found 
the  Field  Columbian  Museum  with  a  gift  of 
$1,000,000,  and  to  contribute  to  the  University 
of  Chicago  the  princely  sum  of  $450,000.  At 
the  time  of  his  death  he  was  conducting  the 
largest  wholesale  and  retail  dry  goods  business 
in  the  world. 

The  writer  of  this  paper  is  not  inclined  to 
minimize  the  value  of  a  college  education.  He 
matriculated  in  three  colleges,  from  one  of  which 
he  was  graduated.  Later  he  prepared  for  his 
professional  career  at  a  theological  seminary. 
But  his  predilections  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  subject  here  discussed.  Of  course  men  have 
succeeded  in  all  branches  of  learning  and  indus 
try  both  with  and  without  classical  training;  but 
the  writer  believes,  from  years  of  observation  and 
from  extensive  reading,  that  the  importance  of 
a  college  education  has  been  greatly  exaggerated. 
Presidents  of  educational  institutions  have  strong 
personal  reasons  for  magnifying  the  value  of  a 
curriculum;  and  with  the  rapid  increase  of  com 
petition  between  colleges  those  reasons  tend  to 
become  ever  more  and  more  personal  and  strenu 
ous. 

The  college  president  of  fifty  years  ago  was 
selected  and  appointed  because  of  his  intellectual 
and  moral  fitness  for  a  position  which  he  hon 
ored  more  than  he  was  in  turn  honored  by  that 
position.  He  was  not,  as  now,  a  "hustler,"  but 
a  distinguished  scholar  and  a  cultivated  gentle- 


COLLEGE  AND  BUSINESS  LIFE     163 

man.  The  man  who  in  these  days  would  be  ac 
counted  successful  as  the  head  of  a  wealthy  edu 
cational  institution  must  know  how  to  extract 
money  from  the  pockets  of  rich  men.  The  old- 
time  president  sustained  close  social  and  educa 
tional  relationships  with  the  students,  but  the 
modern  president  is  more  at  home  under  the  roof 
of  a  railroad  magnate  than  in  the  class  room. 
His  office  is  in  a  Pullman  car,  and  he  is  chiefly  con 
cerned  about  athletics  and  regattas  and  not  about 
the  branches  of  learning  taught  in  his  institu 
tion.  All  this  must  be  taken  into  account  when 
one  endeavors  to  find  out  the  real  value  of  college 
training  to  our  modern  life. 

Insignificant  colleges  with  meagre  endowments 
and  few  students  are  compelled  to  compete  in 
some  measure  with  larger  and  stronger  institu 
tions  of  learning.  You  will  find  unknown  col 
leges  having  scarcely  the  equipment  of  a  high 
school  advertising  ludicrously  bombastic  cur 
ricula.  One  little  college  planted  in  a  small 
village  out  on  the  prairies  announces  instruc 
tion  in  Sanskrit,  Tamil  and  Syriac  languages 
and  literatures.  It  maintains  a  chair  of  archae 
ology  and  also  one  of  international  law.  An 
other  college  has  more  than  intimated  that  it  is 
ready  to  name  itself  after  some  generous  bene 
factor.  There  are  twenty  colleges  in  the  United 
States  where  there  is  need  for  one ;  and  nineteen 
out  of  the  twenty  supply  little  or  no  service 
beyond  that  which  any  high  school  might  render. 


164  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

In  the  writer's  opinion  much  of  the  money  given 
to  so-called  institutions  of  learning  in  this 
country  is  wasted. 

No  one  is  now  confined  to  the  university  in  his 
search  for  an  education.  The  world  is  full  of 
books  and  papers  of  every  description  written  in 
many  languages.  In  every  city,  and,  indeed,  in 
most  villages  of  importance,  may  be  found  a 
good  library.  Thousands  of  libraries  are  free 
to  all  who  wish  to  use  them.  Even  commercial 
life  in  our  modern  world  has  its  educational  side ; 
and  ordinary  men  who  do  not  regard  themselves 
as  instructed  beyond  the  common  requirements 
of  their  trades,  know  more  about  many  things  of 
a  purely  literary  nature  than  could  have  been 
known  by  accomplished  scholars  a  century  ago. 
The  college  of  to-day  is  only  one  of  many  ave 
nues  to  an  enchanted  world  of  wisdom  and 
beauty  into  which  whoever  will  may  enter. 
There  are  in  America  hundreds  of  reading  and 
study  clubs  that  are  in  a  very  real  sense  seats 
of  learning  for  their  members.  The  writer  had 
upon  his  desk  while  preparing  this  paper  the 
printed  prospectus  of  study  for  one  year,  put 
out  by  the  Pine  Hills  Fortnightly  Club  of  Al 
bany,  N.  Y. — an  association  of  ladies  who  meet 
every  two  weeks  during  winter  months  for  the 
discussion  of  literary  and  other  topics  in  which 
they  have  interested  themselves.  The  Pine  Hills 
Fortnightly  Club,  it  is  true,  cannot  confer  de 
grees,  but  it  can  and  does  confer  that  for  which 
every  degree  should  stand. 


COLLEGE  AND  BUSINESS  LIFE     165 

The  real  value  of  a  degree  is  to  be  found  only 
in  the  education  it  should  imply,  and  of  which  it  is 
a  certification.  Apart  from  the  education  a  de 
gree  is  of  purely  ornamental  value.  Yet  how 
many  young  men  after  attending  college  return 
home  with  degrees  of  which  they  are  vainglorious, 
while  they  never  consider  the  greater  value  of  that 
which  they  have  bartered  for  such  empty  and 
trivial  honors  as  are  within  the  gift  of  a  faculty 
or  a  board  of  trustees.  Thousands  of  young 
people  enter  college  with  generous  heart  and 
clean  life,  and  return  to  the  early  fireside  or 
go  out  into  the  world  ruined  in  body  and  mind. 
During  all  the  time  the  youth  was  sowing  wild 
oats,  the  much-travelled  and  well-dined  president 
was  concerned  only  about  the  income  of  his  in 
stitution.  On  paper  his  chair  is  that  of  "Mental 
and  Moral  Philosophy,"  but  in  reality  it  is  that 
of  "Dollars  and  Cents." 

It  may  be  argued  that  professors  share  with 
the  president  the  responsibility  of  caring  for  the 
moral  and  physical  welfare  of  students.  It 
would  seem  right  that  those  who  guide  the  minds 
and  direct  the  studies  of  young  men  should  have 
as  well  some  part  in  forming  their  characters  and 
shaping  their  destinies.  But  consider  how  little 
opposition  the  faculties  of  most  colleges  have 
presented  to  those  brutal  atrocities  which  we  call 
"hazing."  A  writer  in  a  New  York  paper 
facetiously  suggested  that  every  life  insurance 
policy  should  carry  with  it  an  increased  premium 
for  members  of  the  Freshman  class,  as  the  risk 


166  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

incurred  would  seem  to  be  greater  than  that  in 
curred  in  the  insuring  of  ordinary  men  and 
women.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  manslaughter, 
if  not  murder,  has  been  committed  many  times 
under  the  hazing  system  which  presidents  and 
professors  deplore,  but  do  not  even  attempt  to 
prevent.  In  the  Medical  Record  for  March 
10,  1906,  it  was  stated  that  a  student  in  a 
medical  college  in  Nebraska  was  about  to  sue 
the  faculty  for  $50,000  on  the  ground  that  as 
the  result  of  hazing  he  was  rendered  incapable 
of  pursuing  his  college  course.  He  was 
dragged,  so  it  was  reported,  from  the  classroom 
by  Sophomores  who  intended  to  throw  him  into 
a  ventilating  shaft.  He  fought  and  was  kicked 
in  the  back,  his  spine  was  injured,  and  he  has 
had  to  use  crutches  ever  since.  Some  time  ago 
a  young  man  in  a  Western  college  was  thrown 
into  the  river  and  narrowly  escaped  drowning. 
In  another  college  two  young  men  were  exposed 
all  night  to  a  winter  storm  in  an  open  field, 
and  one  of  them  died  of  pneumonia.  From  an 
Oregon  paper  under  date  of  February  28,  1909,  I 
extract  the  following  statement  that  speaks  for 
itself: 

"Cowering  in  a  padded  cell,  a  young  man  whose 
parents  are  pioneer  residents  in  this  city  shivers  at 
the  sound  of  a  step  in  one  of  the  corridors  of  the 
State  Asylum  for  the  Insane,  to  which  he  has  been 
committed  as  the  result  of  being  hazed  by  upper 
classmen  at  the  University.  He  was  ducked  in  an 
icy  bath,  and  when  he  emerged  from  the  frigid 


COLLEGE  AND  BUSINESS  LIFE     167 

water  his  reason  had  fled.  He  graduated  from  the 
High  School  last  June  and  entered  the  University 
at  the  opening  of  the  fall  semester.  He  was  a 
brilliant  student  in  the  High  School,  and  up  to  the 
day  of  the  hazing  had  occupied  a  prominent  posi 
tion  in  his  class  at  college.  By  selling  newspapers 
and  doing  odd  jobs  out  of  school  hours  he  saved 
$1,000  with  which  to  put  himself  through  the  Uni 
versity." 

President  Roosevelt,  after  approving  an  order 
of  Colonel  Hugh  L.  Scott,  who  was  at  the  time 
in  charge  of  the  Military  Academy  at  West 
Point,  dismissing  eight  cadets  from  the  Academy 
for  hazing,  reopened  the  case  and  changed  the 
sentence  of  six  of  the  cadets  to  suspension  for 
one  year.  In  less  than  twelve  months  from  the 
date  of  the  President's  interference  a  cadet  on 
sentry  duty  was  attacked  by  a  party  of  young 
men  wearing  the  uniform  of  the  United  States, 
and  so  severely  injured  that  he  was  confined  for 
some  time  to  the  post  hospital.  This  time  the 
offenders  were,  after  a  fair  trial,  dismissed  from 
the  Academy  and  from  the  service  of  their 
country. 

The  New  York  Sun  of  April  12,  1910,  con 
tained  an  account  of  a  young  lady  who  as 
a  consequence  of  brutal  hazing,  initiative  to  mem 
bership  in  a  Greek  Letter  society  connected 
with  a  High  School,  had  to  be  placed  in  a  sani 
tarium.  She  was  forced  to  eat  raw  oysters 
coated  with  sugar,  drink  kerosene,  swallow 
macaroni  boiled  in  soapsuds,  and  then  take  into 


168  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

her  stomach  highly  seasoned  catsup  and  tabasco. 
This  monstrous  treatment  her  tormentors  ac 
counted  a  pleasant  diversion. 

A  wealthy  gentleman  once  told  the  writer  of 
this  paper  that  he  rejoiced  greatly  when  his  only 
son  decided  to  leave  college  and  enter  commercial 
life.  He  had  been  very  anxious  about  his  son, 
for  he  knew  the  young  man  carried  a  revolver 
and  intended  to  use  it  should  the  necessity  arise. 

When  I  was  a  young  man,  baseball  and  foot 
ball  were  wholesome  and  innocent  recreations 
attended  by  no  great  peril  to  either  life  or  limb, 
but  now  they  are  little  less  than  campaigns  of 
brutality  conducted  for  money,  and  often  result 
in  the  serious  injury  and  even  death  of  some  of 
the  players.  Football  had  to  become  so  out 
rageous  a  scandal  that  good  men  in  all  depart 
ments  of  life  cried  out  against  it  in  the  winter 
of  1905  and  1906,  before  college  authori 
ties  took  any  steps  in  the  matter,  and  even  then 
they  moved  with  hesitancy  and  great  reluc 
tance. 

The  flying  wedge  has  been  in  large  measure 
stopped,  but  the  abominable  mass  play  continues. 
Notwithstanding  every  improvement,  the  list 
of  dead  and  injured  for  the  Season  of  1909  was 
the  largest  for  nine  years.  Thirty  boys  were 
killed,  including  eight  college  players,  twenty 
high-school  boys,  and  two  members  of  athletic 
clubs.  The  injuries  were  divided  among  one 
hundred  and  seventy-one  college  men,  forty 
school  players,  and  five  members  of  athletic 


COLLEGE  AND  BUSINESS  LIFE     169 

clubs.  Twenty-five  persons  suffered  internal 
injuries;  nineteen  had  dislocated  ankles;  nine 
teen  had  concussion  of  the  brain ;  and  the  same 
number  had  fractured  ribs.  Fifteen  legs  and 
nine  arms  were  broken,  while  twelve  collar  bones^ 
were  cracked.  There  were  fifteen  cases  of  torn 
ligaments  and  thirteen  fractured  shoulders. 

The  gifted  author,  Walter  Pater,  was,  when 
at  school,  injured  by  a  playmate  who  gave  him 
a  brutal  kick.  For  a  number  of  weeks  he  was 
confined  to  his  bed,  and  even  to  the  last  day  of 
his  life  the  injury  was  manifest  in  a  peculiar 
defect  in  his  gait. 

It  is  just  that  we  should  say  in  this  connection 
what  is  certainly  true,  that  the  vices,  such  as 
intemperance,  unclean  conversation  and  behav 
ior,  gaming  and  evils  of  the  kind,  are  not  now 
so  prevalent  in  our  colleges  as  they  were  a  cen 
tury  or  more  ago.  There  is  an  unpublished 
letter  bearing  the  date  of  June  4,  1767,  by 
the  Rev.  Jonathan  Ashley,  who  was  at  the  time 
pastor  of  a  church  in  Westfield  and  also  of  a 
church  in  Deerfield,  Mass.,  in  which  are  the  fol 
lowing  words  that  would  be  beyond  all  doubt  a 
libel  were  they  written  of  any  college  to-day : 

"It  is  probable  before  this  time  you  have  heard 
of  another  instance  of  ye  great  corruption  of  our 
College.  Several  of  the  chief  gentlemen's  sons  in 
the  Government  have  been  supposed  to  have  been 
criminally  conversant  with  a  lewd  woman,  whom  it 
is  said  they  kept  secreted  in  a  chamber  in  the  town 
which  was  hired  by  one  of  the  students." 


170  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

We  do  not  lay  the  stress  upon  personal  re 
ligion  that  good  men  in  earlier  generations 
placed  upon  piety  in  college-life,  but  neverthe 
less,  our  colleges  are  purer  and  more  temperate. 

What  has  been  said  and  what  remains  to  be 
said  is  to  no  extent  the  result  of  any  failure 
to  appreciate  the  great  good  accomplished 
by  colleges,  much  less  is  it  the  result  of  hostility 
to  them  and  their  work.  The  writer  of  this 
paper  has  had  practical  acquaintance  with  col 
lege  life.  He  is  also  acquainted  with  noble  and 
highly  educated  men  who  have  given  many  years 
to  the  training  of  the  young  for  honorable  and 
useful  lives.  The  writer  has  in  view  not  the  de 
struction  but  the  reformation  of  college  life. 
He  would  see  abuses  corrected  and  a  better  state 
of  things  inaugurated.  To  that  end  he  not  only 
states  some  of  the  evils  he  deplores,  but  endeavors 
to  render  more  apparent  what  all  admit  and 
yet  few  seriously  consider,  that  the  college  is 
only  a  means  and  never  in  any  sense  of  the  word 
an  end.  The  ablest  and  best  men  this  world  has 
known  have,  many  of  them,  had  no  acquaintance 
with  college  life.  Indeed  the  writer  believes  he 
can  make  a  list  of  distinguished  men  who  never 
attended  college,  that  cannot  be  matched  by  any 
catalogue  of  great  men  whose  names  are  upon 
college  rolls. 

Shakspeare  began  life  with  no  other  education 
than  that  which  the  Free  Grammar  School 
at  Stratford-upon-Avon  was  able  to  give  him. 
Bunyan,  George  Fox,  and  Spinoza,  all  of 


COLLEGE  AND  BUSINESS  LIFE     171 

them  great  men,  were  self-taught.  Jacob 
Boehmen,  the  German  mystic,  never  at 
tended  a  school;  all  his  education  he  obtained 
by  his  own  unassisted  effort.  He  rose  from  the 
humblest  station  in  life  to  be  the  inspiration  of 
Sir  Isaac  Newton,  who  was  guided  to  more  than 
one  of  his  great  discoveries  by  the  study  of 
Boehmen's  "The  Three  Principles."  William 
Carey  without  the  help  of  any  college  became 
one  of  the  most  learned  of  Oriental  linguists. 
He  translated  the  Scriptures  into  Bengali  and 
Hindustani,  and  compiled  grammars  and  dic 
tionaries  in  Mahratta,  Sanscrit,  Punjab,  Telugu, 
and  Bhatana.  Alexander  Pope,  whose  "Essay 
on  Man"  will  live  so  long  as  our  language  en 
dures,  and  whose  delightful  translation  of  Homer 
can  never  lose  its  charm,  commenced  life  with 
no  education  that  would  seem  to  promise  such 
results.  His  later  education,  which  was  large, 
was  entirely  self -acquired.  Lord  Byron  was  ed 
ucated  at  a  day-school  in  Aberdeen  and  at  a 
school  in  Harrow,  but  he  never  matriculated  in 
either  Oxford  or  Cambridge.  Robert  Burns  was 
self-taught.  William  Falconer,  the  poet  of 
"The  Shipwreck"  and  the  compiler  of  "The 
Nautical  Dictionary,"  was  the  son  of  a  poor 
and  illiterate  barber.  He  led  a  mariner's  life,  and 
was  lost  at  sea  in  the  Aurora,  of  which  he  was 
the  purser.  His  entire  education  came  from  the 
use  he  made  of  his  spare  moments,  which  were 
spent  in  reading  and  study.  Hood  and  Mac 
kenzie  were,  neither  of  them,  college-instructed. 


172  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

Nelson,  the  great  British  admiral,  attended  the 
High  School  at  Norwich  and  afterwards  went  to 
school  at  North  Walsham,  but  he  was  not  a 
bright  scholar.  Charles  Dickens,  after  receiving 
a  meagre  education,  studied  law,  but  he  never 
had  much  instruction  in  the  classics.  John 
Stuart  Mill  received  a  superb  education  without 
the  aid  of  any  college.  David  Livingstone,  the 
distinguished  missionary  and  explorer,  and 
Henry  Stanley,  who  found  him  in  the  heart  of 
Africa,  were,  neither  of  them,  prepared  for  the 
work  of  life  in  any  of  the  English  seats  of 
learning.  Hugh  Miller  was  a  man  of  large  ac 
quaintance  with  natural  science,  but  no  college 
contributed  in  any  way  to  his  worth  and  fame. 
John  Hunter,  the  anatomist  and  surgeon,  stood 
at  the  head  of  his  profession  without  the  aid  of 
a  college.  Robert  Stevenson,  the  builder  of 
twenty  lighthouses,  was  self-educated.  Charles 
H.  Spurgeon's  name  is  known  in  every  land.  He 
was  in  some  ways  the  greatest  preacher  of  his 
age ;  for  more  than  forty  years  he  addressed  the 
largest  congregation  in  the  world,  and  thou 
sands  of  his  sermons  were  every  month  distrib 
uted  in  many  lands.  But  Spurgeon's  educational 
advantages  were  limited.  His  name  cannot 
be  found  in  any  catalogue  of  college-gradu 
ates.  Andrew  Carnegie  has  filled  the  English- 
speaking  world  with  good  libraries,  and  right  it 
is  that  he  should  do  so,  for  books  were  his  only 
university. 

Among  Americans  we  name  first  the  greatest 


COLLEGE  AND  BUSINESS  LIFE     173 

of  them  all,  Washington.  The  capitol  of  our 
Republic  is  in  the  beautiful  city  that  bears  his 
name  and  that  is  made  even  more  beautiful  by 
its  association  with  his  glorious  life.  What  col 
lege  would  not  rejoice  to  number  among  its  most 
illustrious  sons  the  Father  of  our  Country ! 
He  was  indebted  to  no  college  for  any  part  of 
that  marvellous  equipment  of  both  mind  and 
moral  nature  that  made  him  the  supremely  great 
man  the  entire  world  acknowledges  him  to  have 
been.  Next  to  Washington  comes  in  our  early 
history  Benjamin  Franklin,  who  acquired  his  ed 
ucation  in  a  printing  office;  an  education  which 
he  enlarged  by  extensive  reading,  but  which  was 
never  improved  by  any  college.  Andrew  Jack 
son  and  Millard  Fillmore  were  self-educated  men. 
Abraham  Lincoln  had  little  schooling  apart  from 
his  knowledge  of  law.  Henry  Clay  and  Stephen 
A.  Douglas  went  to  a  common  school.  Horace 
Greeley,  the  founder  of  the  New  York  Tribune, 
was,  perhaps,  the  greatest  editor  this  or  any 
other  country  has  ever  produced,  but  he  was  en 
tirely  self-educated.  Charles  A.  Dana,  who 
created  the  New  York  Sun,  and  Samuel  Bowles 
of  the  Springfield  Republican,  were  not  college 
men.  Robert  Fulton,  John  Ericsson,  an  Ameri 
can  by  adoption,  and  Thomas  A.  Edison  rose  to 
their  exalted  positions  by  their  own  unassisted 
effort.  Cyrus  W.  Field,  who  gave  us  the  sub 
marine  cable  uniting  two  great  continents,  started 
in  life  with  only  a  common-school  education. 
Washington  Irving,  the  poet  Whittier,  and  some 


174  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

of  our  most  successful  authors,  famous  for  grace 
of  style  and  charm  of  personality,  never  attended 
a  college.  William  Cullen  Bryant  entered 
Williams  College,  but  left  at  the  close  of  the 
Sophomore  year.  George  Peabody,  the  distin 
guished  philanthropist,  won  the  love  of  both 
England  and  America  without  a  college  degree. 
Many  distinguished  men,  as  Mr.  E.  J.  Swift 
has  pointed  out,  made  a  poor  record  in  college. 
To  use  Mr.  Swift's  words: 

"The  finer  individual  qualities  are  often  late  in 
revealing  themselves.  It  is  the  older,  racial  tenden 
cies  that  rule  in  childhood.  Irritation  at  restraint, 
irresponsibility  and  primitive  indolence,  are  to  be 
expected.  Some  mature  slowly  and  are  called  stu 
pid.  George  Eliot  learned  to  read  with  difficulty. 
Thorwaldsen,  the  sculptor,  spent  three  years  in  one 
class  in  the  village  school;  Burger,  the  poet  of 
German  ballads,  required  several  years  to  learn  the 
Latin  forms;  and  Alfieri,  the  Italian  poet,  was  dis 
missed  by  his  teachers,  so  backward  was  he.  Were 
it  necessary,  the  list  might  be  indefinitely  extended 
by  adding  Newton,  Byron,  Ibsen,  Walter  Pater, 
Pierre  Curie  and  others.  Sometimes  seeming  stu 
pidity  is  due  to  interest  in  subjects  outside  the  lit 
tle  circle  round  which  the  tethered  children  are  al 
lowed  to  graze.  Fulton,  Watt  and  Sir  Humphry 
Davy,  in  early  childhood,  were  already  busy  with 
experiments  which  were  to  be  told  to  children  after 
the  teachers  who  called  them  stupid  were  forgotten. 
Tolstoy,  Goethe  and  Dean  Swift  were  refused  their 
degrees  because  they  failed  in  their  university  ex 
aminations,  and,  for  the  same  reason,  Ferdinand 


COLLEGE  AND  BUSINESS  LIFE      175 

Brunetiere  was  denied  admission  to  the  Ecole  Nor- 
male  Superieure.  At  Cambridge,  also,  Sir  William 
Thomson  was  not  a  wrangler  though  one  of  the 
examiners  admitted  that  the  successful  competitor 
was  not  fit  to  cut  pencils  for  Thomson.  When 
asked  why  he  had  delayed  so  long  on  one  of  the 
problems  which  he  himself  had  discovered,  Thom 
son  replied  that,  having  forgotten  that  it  was  one 
of  his  own  inventions,  he  had  worked  it  as  a  wholly 
new  problem.  Later  it  was  learned  that  the  win 
ner  of  the  prize  wrote  the  solution  from  memory. 
Thomson's  failure  to  win  the  Cambridge  honor  be 
cause  of  the  unusual  memory  of  one  of  his  com 
petitors,  illustrates  an  important  class  of  cases  in 
which  the  examination  system  completely  collapses. 
Justus  von  Liebig,  whose  father  was  compelled  to 
remove  him  from  the  gymnasium  because  of  his 
wretched  work,  attributed  his  failure  in  the  school 
to  his  utter  lack  of  auditory  memory.  He  could 
remember  little  that  he  heard.  Yet  his  teachers 
never  discovered  this."  x 

A  few  years  ago  the  late  Francis  H.  Leggett, 
a  wealthy  wholesale  grocer  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  made  public  the  fact  that  he  had  not  in 
his  entire  force  of  six  hundred  clerks  a  single 
college  graduate.  A  reporter  for  Printer's  Ink, 
a  paper  published  at  the  time  by  Mr.  George  P. 
Rowell  in  the  same  city,  called  upon  Mr.  Leggett 
at  his  office  and  obtained  from  him  a  statement 
with  regard  to  his  experience  with  college  gradu 
ates.  Mr.  Leggett  said  that  "through  thirty 
years  of  business  life  he  had  endeavored  to  give 

i  Mr.  E.  J.  Swift  in  Harper's  Magazine. 


176  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

college  men  the  preference,  believing  that  a  lib 
eral  education  ought  to  be  valuable  in  business." 
After  that  long  and  faithful  experiment  he  de 
cided  that  graduates  of  colleges  were  not  as  a 
general  rule  good  business  men.  He  found  them 
disinclined  to  begin  at  the  bottom,  but  without 
the  ability  to  begin  elsewhere.  They  had  a  con 
tempt  for  drudgery.  They  were  unwilling  to 
render  humble  services.  In  some  cases  they  ac 
tually  thought  four  years  in  a  literary  college 
more  than  an  equivalent  for  many  years  of  the 
best  business  experience. 

Mr.  Leggett  found  also  that  the  college  man's 
education  "had  dealt  with  things  so  far  removed 
from  business  life  and  practice  that  he  was 
hardly  on  a  par  with  a  boy  from  the  public 
schools  so  far  as  useful  knowledge  was  concerned, 
while  he  was  hampered  by  whatever  foppish  illu 
sions  his  college  life  may  have  given  him."  Mr. 
Leggett  discovered  that  the  college  graduate 
knew  algebra,  but  had  almost  no  knowledge  of 
arithmetic.  He  could  work  out  a  difficult  prob 
lem  if  you  would  give  him  time,  but  he  could 
not  think  rapidly  when  questions  in  arithmetic 
were  up  for  consideration.  "Business,"  said  Mr. 
Leggett,  "is  founded  upon  arithmetic — quick 
mental  arithmetic  that  will  yield  results  in  a  mo 
ment."  Colleges  pay  no  attention  to  arithmetic 
and  the  common  branches  of  every-day  educa 
tion.  They  assume  that  the  three  R's  were  mas 
tered  before  the  young  man  entered  upon  his 
college  life.  But  a  man  may  know  Latin  and 


COLLEGE  AND  BUSINESS  LIFE      177 

Greek  and  yet  be  unable  to  speak  and  write  his 
own  language  correctly.  In  college  many  things 
are  taught  that  are  of  no  use  in  business  life, 
and  the  young  man  entering  upon  his  college 
career  knows  little  of  the  hard  reality  of  the 
world  in  which  he  must  live.  He  knows  all  that 
there  is  to  be  known  about  a  dead  language  and 
people  that  passed  away  long  centuries  ago,  but 
he  has  scant  knowledge  of  his  own  country. 
When  he  leaves  college  he  is  too  old  to  learn  what 
should  have  been  learned  when  he  was  a  child.1 

"The  colleges,"  said  Mr.  Leggett,  "misedu- 
cate.  They  teach  nothing  but  book  knowledge. 
College  professors  have  been  steeped  in  the  col 
lege  traditions."  Being  further  pressed  by  the 

1  The  following  excerpt  from  The  Dial,  a  paper  always 
friendly  to  colleges  and  college  men,  throws  upon  the  fail 
ure  of  colleges  to  develop  a  high  moral  tone  and  the  abil 
ity  to  earn  a  living  in  some  useful  employment,  this  sad, 
but  instructive  light: 

"The  college-man  in  the  *bread  line'  is  a  spectacle  that 
saddens  and  that  moves  to  reflection.  College  education 
is  more  and  more  striving  to  coordinate  itself  with  the 
demands  of  modern  life  and  industry,  the  sciences  are 
ousting  the  old-fashioned  'humanities,'  the  principles  of 
trade  and  commerce  are  taught,  and  to  an  increasing  ex 
tent  the  practical  is  taking  precedence  of  the  ideal.  And 
yet  we  are  told  by  a  mission  worker  in  the  slums  of  New 
York  (we  refer  to  Mr.  E.  C.  Mercer  and  his  Columbia 
University  address  on  'College  Graduates  on  the  Bowery') 
that  one  night  he  counted  thirty-nine  college  men  of  his 
acquaintance  in  the  Bowery  'bread  line,'  while  another 
investigator  found  four  hundred  college  men  in  the  Bowery 
in  a  single  night.  Under  the  old  educational  regime  a 
college-bred  pauper  was  an  almost  unheard-of  anomaly. 
Can  it  be  that,  after  all,  the  most  practical  things  are  in 
some  danger  of  proving  the  most  useless?" 


178  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

reporter  who  was  himself  in  nowise  hampered  by 
any  tradition,  and  whose  business  proficiency 
was  the  result  of  his  own  industry,  and  not  of 
any  college  training,  Mr.  Leggett  said,  "What 
colleges  teach  is  not  only  valueless,  but  actually 
harmful  to  the  youth  who  intends  entering  com 
mercial  life.  The  college  graduate,  thrown  into 
the  business  world,  knows  less  than  the  boy  who 
is  forced  to  leave  school  and  earn  his  living  at 
fifteen ;  while  he  has  a  false  estimate  of  his 
ability  that  makes  him  disdainful  of  the  work 
that  would  be  the  means  of  teaching  him 
business." 

Mr.  Leggett's  statement  is  worthy  of  con 
sideration.  It  is  that  of  a  successful  business 
man  who  has  had  large  experience.  The  con 
clusion  to  be  drawn  from  it  is  that  classical  col 
leges  are  not  helps  but  hindrances  to  young  men 
who  wish  to  enter  business  life.  They  train 
their  minds  in  the  direction  of  professional  life, 
and  create  tastes  and  inclinations  at  variance 
with  the  hard  and  matter-of-fact  duties  and  re 
quirements  of  the  life  they  elect  to  lead.  Business 
colleges  are  in  large  measure  free  from  these 
objections,  but  there  are  among  such  institutions 
none  that  take  rank  with  the  best  classical  col 
leges,  unless  medical,  legal  and  theological  col 
leges  and  seminaries  are  to  be  classed  with  busi 
ness  schools.  Scientific  and  mining  schools,  the 
Polytechnic  Institute  at  Troy,  N.  Y.,  the  Mili 
tary  Academy  at  West  Point,  and  the  Naval 


COLLEGE  AND  BUSINESS  LIFE     179 

Academy  at  Annapolis,  do  not  come  under  Mr. 
Leggett's  strictures. 

Under  the  heading  "A  Severe  Indictment,"  the 
Educational  Review  reprinted  from  the  Argonaut 
(San  Francisco)  in  the  autumn  of  1910  an  appar 
ently  frank  and  yet  severe  criticism  of  the  col 
lege  graduate.  The  charge  was  one  of  down 
right  incapacity.  It  may  be  the  arraignment 
was  too  sweeping,  but  its  perfect  agreement  with 
the  statement  of  Mr.  Leggett's  experience  is 
certainly  very  striking : 

"  'In  recruiting  its  service,  says  the  Argonaut, 
speaking  of  its  own  experience,  'trial  has  again  and 
again  been  made  of  the  college-bred  youth,  but 
never  with  any  approach  to  success.  We  have  never 
yet  been  able  to  find  a  college-bred  youth,  without 
a  long  subsequent  practical  drill,  who  could  write 
clean  English,  or  who  could  even  write  a  hand 
which  the  printer  could  read.  Not  one  of  those 
from  Frank  Pixley  down,  whose  work  in  the  Ar 
gonaut  has  been  an  element  in  its  character  and  in 
fluence,  has  been  a  man  of  college  breeding.  This 
remark  applies  to  other  publications  of  the  country 
representative  of  journalism  in  its  higher  rank.  It 
is  only  a  few  months  ago  that  there  was  assembled 
at  a  dinner  table  in  the  Century  Club  at  New  York 
a  little  group  representing  the  very  highest  forces 
in  American  journalism — including  the  editor  of 
Harper's  Weekly,  the  then  editor  of  the  Century, 
and  others  of  equal  note — when,  through  a  chance 
inquiry,  it  developed  that  only  one  present  was  a 
college-bred  man/  " 


180  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

Students  in  American  colleges,  unlike  those 
in  English  institutions  of  learning,  seem  to  take 
little  interest  in  the  responsibilities  of  public  life 
and  of  the  government  under  which  they  live. 
They  are  more  concerned  about  dead  nations 
than  about  the  living  one  with  which  they  are 
themselves  connected.  The  professors  themselves 
incline  in  the  same  direction;  they  seldom  take 
any  direct  part  in  the  political  life  around  them. 
Yet  surely  to  all  who  live  under  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  the  United  States  should  be  more  in 
teresting  and  more  important  than  are  the 
Greece  and  Rome  of  earlier  days.  The  writer 
does  not  forget  that  Ex-President  Roosevelt  and 
President  Taft  are  college  men,  and  that  there 
are  other  representatives  of  college  life  high  up 
in  public  confidence  and  honor,  but  these  are 
rather  the  exception  than  the  rule. 

It  is  too  much  to  ask  of  any  young  man  in 
the  ordinary  walks  of  life  and  with  ordinary 
mental  endowments,  that  he  pass  through  school, 
after  that  spend  four  years  in  a  classical  col 
lege,  and  then  take  two  or  three  years  in  a  legal 
or  medical  college  before  he  begins  to  acquire 
the  real  training  for  work  which  is  in  a  large 
measure  the  experience  which  comes  of  the  work 
itself.  The  man  begins  work  too  late.  His 
tastes  and  opinions  are  already  fixed,  and  they 
are  not  fixed  in  the  line  of  his  occupation.  His 
mind  has  lost  much  of  its  elasticity.  What  fol 
lows?  This,  that  our  colleges  should  teach 
young  men  the  things  which  are  useful  in  busi- 


COLLEGE  AND  BUSINESS  LIFE     181 

ness  as  well  as  the  things  which  are  essential  to 
professional  life.  A  university  is  such  in  name 
only  that  has  not  in  its  equipment  a  good  com 
mercial  college.  Harvard  University  should  be 
able  to  furnish  a  suitable  education  for  both  a 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  and  a  Marshall  Field — 
the  one  a  prince  in  the  realm  of  letters,  and  the 
other  a  prince  equally  as  great  in  that  of  com 
mercial  achievement.  We  are  not  of  Horace 
Greeley's  opinion,  "of  all  horned  cattle,  deliver 
me  from  the  college  graduate,"  but  we  are  of 
Mr.  Leggett's  opinion  that  the  young  man's 
training  should  have  some  definite  relation  to  his 
life-work. 

There  was  in  the  old-time  colleges  a  serious 
fault  in  large  measure  corrected  by  our  modern 
elective  system  of  education.  The  college  of 
fifty  years  or  more  ago  was  a  huge  impersonal 
machine  into  which  minds  of  every  kind,  with 
no  thought  whatever  of  individual  peculiarities, 
were  ruthlessly  cast,  to  be  turned  out,  so  far  as 
possible,  alike  in  every  respect.  The  one  end 
always  in  view  was  the  creation  of  Latin  and 
Greek  scholars.  The  mind  that  could  not  be 
classically  educated  was  accounted  stupid.  Cul 
tivated  mediocrity  was  the  order  of  the  day,  and 
whatever  remotely  resembled  genius  was  vigor 
ously  discouraged.  Balzac  was  driven  from 
several  schools  because  his  wonderful  mind  could 
not  be  run  through  the  educational  hopper  of 
that  time.  His  masters,  one  and  all,  set  him 
down  for  a  fool.  We  now  know  that  the  fools 


182  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

were  in  the  professorial  chairs,  and  that  a  young 
man  of  great  ability  was  despised  and  thrust 
out  because  public  instructors  had  not  the  keen 
ness  of  mental  vision  to  discover  his  real  worth. 
Read  "Louis  Lambert,"  and  see  how  bitter  was 
Balzac's  struggle  with  a  number  of  incompetent 
teachers.  The  experience  of  the  young  man 
Coleridge  was  not  wholly  unlike  that  of  the  youth 
who  was  to  become  one  of  the  greatest  of  French 
novelists.  Pestalozzi,  when  a  boy,  was  named 
"the  dunce"  because  he  could  not  spell.  His 
teachers  could  spell  correctly,  and  great  was  their 
influence  in  their  educational  circles,  but  now, 
while  all  the  world  knows  of  Pestalozzi,  who  can 
tell  us  anything  about  his  teachers  !  Charles  Dar 
win  was  afraid  to  send  his  son  to  school.  He 
wanted  the  child's  mind  developed  along  the  line 
of  his  natural  abilities.  He  distrusted  the  popu 
lar  educational  theories.  He  was  right,  and  our 
old  system  of  instruction  was  all  wrong.  For 
every  class  above  the  Freshman  a  full  elective 
course  should  be  prepared.  It  has  been  truly 
said,  "The  elective  system  is  nothing  more  than 
a  recognition  of  the  duty  of  the  university  to 
offer  instruction  in  many  fields."  Latin  and 
Greek  are  good,  but  they  are  no  better  in  their 
places  than  are  French  and  German  in  theirs. 

The  literatures  of  Rome  and  Greece  can  never 
lose  their  charm,  but  there  is  no  reason  why  mod 
ern  languages  should  not  rank  with  the  languages 
of  Plato  and  Virgil. 

Culture  is  of  many  kinds.     AH  over  the  civil- 


COLLEGE  AND  BUSINESS  LIFE      183 

ized  world  new  fields  of  knowledge  and  new  av 
enues  of  usefulness  invite  the  thoughts  and 
energies  of  man.  It  is  a  hard  and  hurtful  ex 
perience  to  have  to  spend  the  precious  years  of 
youth  in  acquiring  a  peculiar  kind  of  knowledge 
not  wanted  in  the  actual  business  of  life,  and,  per 
haps,  distasteful  to  the  learner.  I  have  seen 
"finishing  schools"  drill  in  music  young  ladies 
who  not  only  had  no  delight  in  the  kind  of  music 
that  was  taught  them,  but  were  repelled  by  every 
sort  of  music  worth  knowing.  It  was  once  be 
lieved  that  no  one  could  be  a  lady  who  was  not 
able  to  slaughter  at  public  functions  and  "pink 
teas"  the  great  masters  of  immortal  song.  The 
day  of  that  kind  of  folly  is  passing  away.  The 
masters  will  escape,  and  the  public  will  be  spared 
many  miserable  hours  of  torture  by  the  rising 
of  the  sun  of  common-sense  upon  the  darkness 
of  "finishing  schools."  Some  of  the  ablest 
preachers  know  little  Greek  and  less  Hebrew. 
Not  a  few  of  our  best  lawyers  were  educated  at 
the  common  school,  and  prepared  for  a  profes 
sional  career  in  the  office  of  a  good  attorney. 
Not  all  distinguished  surgeons  have  wasted  time 
over  conic  sections.  He  who  knows  well  some 
useful  thing  and  turns  his  knowledge  to  account 
in  helpful  words  and  deeds  may  be  described  as 
leading  a  successful  life.  Such  a  life  should  be 
recognized  as  noble  and  sufficient.  The  office  of 
an  educational  institution  is  to  help  the  indi 
vidual  to  be  of  service  to  his  race.  Such  insti 
tutions  are  means  to  a  common  end,  but  they  are 


184  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

never  an  end  in  themselves.  Education  is  educa 
tion  still,  even  though  secured  extra  muros.  Mr. 
Crane  tells  us,  in  his  book  on  Education,  that 
knowledge  is  the  knowing  of  important  things. 
But  what  one  man  finds  important  another  thinks 
well  nigh  worthless.  Some  distinguish  between 
the  useful  and  the  beautiful,  accounting  the  one 
more  important  than  the  other.  But  whatever 
kind  of  knowledge  enriches  a  man's  mind  becomes 
a  part  of  that  man's  education.  It  does  not  fol 
low  that  a  craftsman  is  an  ignorant  man  because 
he  does  not  know  the  things  that  a  philosopher 
should  understand.  In  the  end  no  line  separates 
the  useful  from  the  beautiful.  Every  kind  of 
useful  knowledge  has  its  own  beauty,  and  every 
beautiful  thing  is  useful. 


VI 

OLD  AGE 

ap*  ot  yepovres  ev^ovrai  Qavelv, 
<//e'yovTes  teal  fjuLKpov  XP°VOV  /Sio 
*Hv  8s  eyyv?  cA^?/  ^avaros,  oi>8eis 
6vr)crK.€iv,  TO  y^/aas  8*  ov/ceV  lar1  avrot?  (3apv. 

"Honorable  age  is  not  that  which  standeth  in 
length  of  time,  nor  that  is  measured  by  number  of 
years:  but  Wisdom  is  the  grey  hair  unto  men,  and 
an  unspotted  life  is  old  age." 

— Wisdom,  iv,  9- 


OLD  AGE 

WHEN  the  hills,  touched  with  frost  in  the 
early  autumn,  put  on  their  beautiful 
robes,  and  all  the  forests  are  clothed  in  scarlet 
and  gold,  there  is  an  attraction  as  strong  and 
as  gentle  as  any  subtle  influence  that  haunts  the 
opening  of  spring-time  or  pervades  the  slum 
berous  summer,  heavy  with  heat  and  resplendent 
with  canopies  of  living  green.  To  know  Nature 
at  her  best  one  must  find  her  early  and  leave  her 
late.  Of  the  little  villages  in  New  England  what 
can  one  know  who  has  not  seen  in  the  month  of 
May  the  apple-blossoms  white  like  snow  upon  the 
overburdened  boughs,  and  watched  in  the  dreamy 
mists  of  Indian-summer  the  yellow  sunsets  fade 
into  the  purple  shadows  of  October  and  Novem 
ber  twilights.  Every  season  has  its  peculiar 
beauty,  and  of  each  the  words  of  an  American 
poet  are  true: 

"To  one  who  in  the  love  of  Nature 
Holds  communion  with  her  visible  forms, 
She  speaks  a  various  language." 

When  the  mind  can  comprehend  that  language 
and  understand  its  message,  the  roaring  winds  of 
mid-winter  have  as  sweet  a  music  when  forests 
bow  them  to  the  snowy  earth  and  tall  pines  are 
splintered  by  the  blast,  as  have  the  gentler  voices 
of  the  spring-time  in  "the  leafy  month  of  June." 
The  truth  in  Nature  is  the  same  truth  we  find  in 
187 


188  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

human  life.  Youth  has  its  own  peculiar  attrac 
tion  ;  so  has  manhood,  stout-hearted,  self-confi 
dent,  and  robust;  and  none  the  less  has  slowly 
advancing  age.  That  the  last  of  life  is  in  no 
way  behind  the  beginning  in  rich  compensation, 
the  gentle  Wordsworth  knew  right  well  when,  by 
the  quiet  shores  of  Rydal  Lake,  he  wrote  those 
beautiful  lines  so  often  quoted,  and  yet  of  which 
we  never  weary : 

"Old  age  serene  and  bright, 
And  lovely  as  a  Lapland  night, 
Shall  lead  thee  to  thy  grave.'* 

Lines  like  these  bring  to  mind  the  Bible  phrase, 
"A  good  old  age,"  and  they  suggest  as  well  the 
consoling  picture  of  the  aged  patriarch  leaning 
upon  his  staff  in  the  opening  of  his  tent  amid 
the  soft  shadows  of  the  Syrian  landscape,  wor 
shiping  God  after  the  manner  of  his  ancestors 
with  the  simple  faith  of  those  early  days.  We 
admire  Shakspeare's  description  of  old  age,  but 
never  for  so  much  as  a  moment  is  it  to  be  com 
pared  with  the  brief  and  exquisite  story  of  the 
closing  scene  in  the  life  of  Jacob  as  we  have  it 
in  the  ancient  book  of  Genesis :  "Then  when 
Jacob  had  made  an  end  of  commanding  his  sons, 
he  gathered  up  his  feet  into  the  bed,  and  yielded 
up  the  ghost,  and  was  gathered  unto  his  people." 
How  simple,  tender,  and  strong  is  the  narrative. 
It  is  not  true,  as  the  English  dramatist  would  have 
us  believe,  that  for  the  most  part  life  is  but  a 
stale  and  unprofitable  thing;  that  men  follow 


OLD  AGE  189 

only  the  bubble  reputation ;  and  that  at  last  there 
remains  for  all  one  melancholy  end,  to  drop 
through  a  few  years  of  senile  folly  into  unre 
corded  graves: 

"The  lean  and  slippered  pantaloon, 
With  spectacles  on  nose,  and  pouch  on  side; 
His  youthful  hose  well  saved,  a  world  too  wide 
For  his  shrunk  shank;  and  his  big  manly  voice, 
Turning  again  toward  childish  treble,  pipes 
And  whistles  in  his  sound.     Last  scene  of  all, 
That  ends  this  strange,  eventful  history, 
Is  second  childishness  and  mere  oblivion; 
Sans  teeth,  sans  eyes,  sans  taste,  sans  everything." 

We  turn  from  this  much  admired,  but  sad  and 
one-sided  picture  of  decay,  to  contemplate  the 
devout  Simeon  who  waited  in  Jerusalem  for 
the  consolation  of  Israel.  It  was  revealed  unto 
the  aged  saint  that  he  should  not  see  death  before 
he  had  seen  the  Lord's  Christ.  And  he,  waiting, 
not  for  "second  childishness  and  mere  oblivion," 
but  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  Divine  Promise  and 
that  blessed  consolation  of  Israel  upon  which  his 
heart  fed  through  the  long  expectancy  of  the 
years,  came  into  the  Temple,  "and  when  the 
parents  brought  in  the  child  Jesus,  to  do  for  him 
after  the  custom  of  the  law,  then  took  he  him 
up  in  his  arms,  and  blessed  God,  and  said,  'Lord, 
now  lettest  thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace  ac 
cording  to  thy  word;  for  mine  eyes  have  seen 
thy  salvation.' '  Longfellow  has,  in  his  lovely 
romance  of  "Hyperion,"  these  wise  and  tender 
words : 


190  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

"For  my  part,  I  grow  happier  as  I  grow  older. 
When  I  compare  my  sensations  and  enjoyments 
now  with  what  they  were  ten  years  ago,  the  com 
parison  is  vastly  in  favor  of  the  present.  Much 
of  the  fever  and  fretfulness  of  life  are  over.  The 
world  and  I  look  each  other  more  calmly  in  the 
face.  My  mind  is  more  self-possessed.  It  has 
done  me  good  to  be  somewhat  parched  by  the  heat 
and  drenched  by  the  rain  of  life." 

Thus,  no  doubt,  by  nature  as  well  as  by  re 
ligious  agencies  were  the  mind  and  heart  of  the 
venerable  man  prepared  for  the  wonderful  vision 
of  the  consolation  of  Israel  that  came  to  him  in 
the  aftermath,  when  the  parching  heat  and  drench 
ing  rain  of  life  had  crowned  the  hill-sides  with  a 
harvest  of  hope.  And  as  the  little  child  Jesus 
nestled  confidingly  in  bis  loving  arms,  and  from 
under  the  dark  lashes  of  those  Judean  eyes  the 
"Light  of  the  world"  shone  tenderly  and  sweetly 
upon  bis  believing  heart,  must  not  all  bis  life 
have  seemed  a  blessed  preparation  for  so  heav 
enly  a  disclosure?  To  him  the  discipline  of  the 
years  must  in  the  end  have  covered  themselves 
with  the  mantle  of  thanksgiving.  The  discord 
ant  voices  of  passion  had  long  been  hushed,  and 
the  feverish  dreams  of  ambition  were  no  more. 
Instead  of  enthusiasm  he  had  experience,  hardest 
of  all  things  to  acquire.  To  him  the  spiritual 
world  bad  become  real. 

Such  has  been  in  some  measure  the  experience 
of  earnest  men  in  all  ages  and  in  all  lands.  The 
mirage  glitters  only  in  the  light  and  beat  of  mid- 


OLD  AGE  191 

day;  the  approach  of  evening  dispels  the  illu 
sion.  So  when  the  shadows  fall  and  life  draws 
near  its  end,  some  things  are  more  distinctly  per 
ceived.  There  is  a  certain  ease  and  mellowness 
of  companionship  in  riper  years.  The  horizon 
is  broader,  the  sympathies  are  more  general,  and 
the  feeling  and  purpose  of  the  man  more  catho 
lic.  Anxiety  for  victory  has  given  place  to  re 
gard  for  truth.  A  distinguished  writer  has  said 
that  no  one  can  understand  Shakspeare  before 
the  age  of  forty  has  been  reached.  Up  to  that 
time  it  is  quite  possible  to  admire  the  dramatist, 
but  no  one  under  forty  can  comprehend  his  mean 
ing  or  enter  into  his  spirit.  I  verily  believe  there 
are  some  things  not  in  literature  alone  or  in 
philosophy,  but  in  life  and  the  spiritual  domain 
that  can  never  be  learned  from  books  and  colleges, 
and  that  only  the  years  can  impart  to  the  willing 
mind. 

The  approach  of  age  should  always  bring  with 
it  moral  rest,  which  is  only  another  name  for 
peace.  Positive  happiness  is  not  absolutely  essen 
tial;  a  man  may  forego  this,  and  yet  lead  a 
strong,  noble,  and  beautiful  life.  Some  of  the 
best  characters  in  history  have  known  much  of 
sorrow,  and  have  been  themselves  ripened  into 
what  they  were  by  that  very  sorrow.  I  suppose 
it  is  the  increasing  desire  and  need  for  rest  of 
both  body  and  mind,  and  for  peace  of  heart  which 
should  come  with  the  years,  that  makes  Words 
worth,  so  little  cared  for  by  the  young,  a  favor 
ite  poet  with  elderly  persons,  and  especially  with 


192  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

the  contemplative.  Watson  has  very  much  the; 
same  thought  in  his  lovely  poem,  "Wordsworth's 
Grave" — a  poem  which  has  immortalized  his 
name  with  the  English-speaking  world: 

"Not  Milton's  keen,  translunar  music  thine; 

Not  Shakspeare's  cloudless,  boundless  human  view ; 
Not  Shelley's  flush  of  rose  on  peaks  divine; 

Nor  yet  the  wizard  twilight  Coleridge  knew. 

What  hadst  thou  that  could  make  so  large  amends 
For  all  thou  hadst  not  and  thy  peers  possessed, 

Motion  and  fire,  swift  means  to  radiant  ends? 
Thou  hadst,  for  weary  feet,  the  gift  of  rest. 

From  Shelley's  dazzling  glow  or  thunderous  haze, 
From  Byron's  tempest-anger,  tempest-mirth, 

Men  turned  to  thee  and  found — not  blast  and  blaze, 
Tumult  of  tottering  heavens,  but  peace  on  earth. 

Not  peace  that  grows  by  Lethe,  scentless  flower, 
There  in  white  langours  to  decline  and  cease; 

But  peace,  whose  names  are  also  rapture,  power, 
Clear    sight,    and   love:    for    these    are    parts    of 
peace." 

What  old  age  shall  be  must  in  considerable 
measure  depend  upon  the  use  one  makes  of  early 
years  and  mid-life.  When  a  man  is  old  his  mind 
reverts  to  early  days.  Old  habits  of  thought 
will  not  relinquish  their  hold.  The  man  of 
eighty  forgets  what  happened  yesterday,  but  he 
recalls  his  childhood.  How  often  in  the  hour  of 
death,  when  the  mind  is  clouded  and  the  physical 


OLD  AGE  193 

faculties  impaired,  memory  leaps  the  chasm  of  the 
years,  and  the  old  man  is  again  surrounded  by 
the  scenes  of  his  youth.  We  need  not  fear  and 
we  should  not  repine.  Rather  should  we  be 
grateful  for  what  we  have  enjoyed,  and  for  that 
Infinite  Mercy  in  which  we  shall  do  well  to  con 
fide. 

"As  the  bird  trims  her  to  the  gale, 
I  trim  myself  to  the  storm  of  time; 
I  man  the  rudder,  reef  the  sail, 
Obey  the  voice  at  eve  obeyed  at  prime: 
'Lowly  faithful,  banish  fear, 
Right  onward  drive  unharmed; 
The  port,  well  worth  the  cruise,  is  near, 
And  every  wave  is  charmed/  " 

Montaigne  would  have  it  that  we  are  old  at 
forty ;  and  he  cites  the  case  of  the  younger  Cato, 
who  said  to  those  who  would  prevent  him  from 
taking  what  little  he  thought  was  left  of  his 
life,  "Am  I  now  of  an  age  to  be  reproached  that 
I  go  out  of  the  world  too  soon?"  Cato  was  only 
forty-eight,  and  yet  he  thought  himself  superan 
nuated.  There  is  no  standard  by  which  we  may 
measure  the  years.  One  man  is  old  early  in  life, 
and  another  is  loaded  with  fruit  far  into  the  win 
ter.  The  Scripture  measure  is  three-score-and-ten, 
but  in  these  times,  because  our  lives  are  so  well  pro 
tected,  we  reach  a  much  greater  age;  and  some 
are  well  and  active  in  both  body  and  mind  after 
ninety  and  even  more  years.  I  had  a  delightful 
conversation  with  Julia  Ward  Howe  when  she 


194  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

was  not  far  from  ninety,  and,  though  she  was 
reminiscent,  she  was  still  full  of  hope  and  enthu 
siasm.  She  lived  to  be  a  little  over  ninety-one, 
and  to  the  end  she  possessed  a  clear  mind.  She 
was  full  of  joy  and  of  gladness  in  life  long  after 
physical  infirmity  had  rendered  active  participa 
tion  in  the  world  of  affairs  impossible.  She  said, 
"People  wonder  why  I  don't  die ;  but  how  can 
I,  when  I  have  eight  great-grandchildren  to  see 
started  in  life?" 

Some  are  ready  for  the  work  of  life  at  a  very 
early  age,  but  not  all  are  so  favored.  It  was 
Montaigne's  opinion  that  "our  souls  are  adult 
at  twenty  as  much  as  they  are  ever  like  to  be, 
and  as  capable  then  as  ever."  Alexander  was 
but  thirty-three  when  he  "wept  for  want  of  more 
worlds  to  conquer" ;  Hannibal  was  only  thirty- 
six  when  he  gained  the  battle  of  Canna?,  and 
threatened  even  the  Imperial  City;  Charlemagne 
was  master  of  France  and  of  a  part  of  Germany 
at  twenty-nine ;  Raphael  was  not  thirty  when  they 
called  him  the  "divine"  Raphael;  Calvin  was  im 
mortal  before  he  was  twenty-eight;  Pope  trans 
lated  the  Iliad  before  he  had  reached  his 
twenty-fifth  year;  Isaac  Newton  was  at  the  sum 
mit  of  his  fame  at  thirty ;  Harvey  was  not  thirty- 
four  when  he  discovered  the  circulation  of  the 
blood;  Byron  had  written  his  greatest  poems 
before  he  was  thirty-four,  and  he  was  in  his  grave 
at  thirty-seven;  Mozart  died  at  thirty-five;  John 
Jay  was  Chief  Justice  of  New  York  at  thirty-two. 
But  though  youth  is  full  of  great  achievement, 


OLD  AGE  195 

age  is  not,  therefore,  wholly  wanting  in  deeds 
of  worth  and  renown ;  and  in  counsel  and  advice 
it  greatly  surpasses  not  only  youth  but  mid-life 
as  well. 

Old  age  was  not  a  sad  or  a  melancholy  thing 
to  Mrs.  Barbauld.  She  had  lost  most  of  the 
friends  of  her  early  life,  and  she  has  left  it  on 
record  that  she  was  lonely.  After  the  death  of 
Mrs.  Taylor,  whom  she  loved  most  of  all,  she 
consented  to  leave  her  solitary  home,  and  to  live 
the  remaining  years  of  her  life  with  an  adopted 
son.  But  death  came  to  her  before  she  could 
make  the  change.  She  died  sitting  quietly  in  her 
chair.  Her  literary  life  ended  only  with  her 
natural  life.  She  was  over  seventy  when  she 
wrote  the  little  poem  called  "Octogenary  Reflec 
tions."  It  is  now  among  the  forgotten  frag 
ments  of  the  world's  good  literature,  but  once  it 
was  well  known  and  greatly  admired.  She  is 
remembered  and  will  always  be  remembered  by 
those  beautiful  lines  which  she  called  "Life,"  and 
which  are  to  be  found  in  nearly  every  anthology : 

"Life,  we've  been  long  together, 
Through  pleasant  and  through  cloudy  weather: 
'Tis  hard  to  part  when  friends  are  dear; 
Perhaps  'twill  cost  a  sigh,  a  tear; 
Then  steal  away,  give  little  warning, 
Choose  thine  own  time. 

Say  not  good-night,  but  in  some  brighter  clime, 
Bid  me  good-morning." 

Wordsworth  used  often  to  repeat  those  lines; 
Tennyson  called  them  "sweet  verses" ;  and 


196  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

Madame  d'Arblay  in  her  old  age  told  Crabb 
Robinson  that  every  night  when  she  went  to  rest 
she  said  those  lines  over  to  herself. 

To  the  last  all  these  whose  names  we  have 
mentioned  delighted  themselves  in  noble  associa 
tions,  took  pleasure  in  the  beauty  of  song  and  in 
the  common  gladness  of  those  who  surrounded 
them,  and  were  keenly  alive  to  such  opportunities 
for  service  as  came  to  them  even  in  old  age. 
Thus  to  grow  old  is  truly  beautiful.  It  is  to 
age  as  the  trees  age,  putting  on  autumnal  splen 
dors  with  the  approach  of  frost  and  snow. 
Anna  Letitia  Barbauld  knew  what  it  was  to  be 
lonely,  for  she  had  not  only  parted  in  the  course 
of  nature  from  early  friends,  but,  being  a  woman 
of  letters,  her  companionships  even  in  mid-life 
must  have  been  restricted.  She  tells  us  that  she 
was  lonely,  but  nevertheless  we  see  in  all  we  know 
of  her  life  that  no  part  of  it  was  without  some 
measure  of  satisfaction.  The  Psalmist,  who 
thought  that  old  age  was  only  another  name  for 
three-score-and-ten,  writing  of  it  said,  "Our 
strength  is  labor  and  sorrow."  No  doubt  the 
labor  and  sorrow  are  often  found,  but  we 
do  well  to  put  far  from  us  so  much  of  both  as 
we  can.  If  the  labor  must  be,  let  it  be  with  as 
little  friction  as  possible.  We  may  not  live  to 
be  as  old  as  Henry  Jenkins,  who  died  at  the  ripe 
age  of  one  hundred  and  sixty-nine  years  and 
who  was  a  fisherman  angling  in  the  brooks  and 
water-courses  of  his  dearly  loved  England  even 
when  he  was  a  hundred  and  forty  years  old.  Be 


OLD  AGE  197 

we  ever  so  fond  of  the  gentle  but  cruel  sport, 
it  is  not  at  all  likely  we  shall  have  anything  re 
sembling  his  skill.  He  made  artificial  flies  the 
year  before  he  died,  without  spectacles  and  with 
out  the  assistance  of  others.  No  doubt  Izaak 
Walton  attributed  the  old  angler's  long  life  to 
out-door  occupations,  and  especially  to  angling. 
Walton  said,  "God  never  did  make  a  more  calm, 
quiet,  innocent  recreation  than  angling,"  but  I 
should  like  to  know  the  opinion  of  the  trout  and 
of  the  other  fish  that  he  and  Jenkins  and  men 
of  their  way  of  thinking  captured.  Byron  took 
a  very  different  view  of  the  matter  when  he  wrote : 

"And  angling,  too,  that  solitary  vice, 
Whatever  Izaak  Walton  sings  or  says; 
The  quaint,  old,  cruel  coxcomb,  in  his  gullet 
Should  have  a  hook,  and  a  small  trout  to  pull 
it." 

Age  will  come  to  all  of  us  if  we  live  long 
enough  to  experience  its  discomforts,  but  that 
period  need  not  be,  and  certainly  it  should  not 
be,  one  of  distress  if  we  have  health  and  are  lifted 
above  the  burden  of  want.  Wise  wrere  the  words 
of  Sir  Theodore  Martin  spoken  by  him  in  the 
Inaugural  Address  which  he  delivered  when  he 
became  rector  of  St.  Andrew's  University: 

"It  is  not  years  that  make  age.  Frivolous  pur 
suits,  base  passions  unsubdued,  narrow  selfishness, 
vacuity  of  mind,  life  with  sordid  aims,  or  no  aim 
at  all — these  are  the  things  that  bring  age  upon 
the  soul.  Healthful  tastes,  an  open  eye  for  what 


198  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

is  beautiful  and  good  in  nature  and  in  man,  a  happy 
remembrance  of  youthful  pleasures,  a  mind  never 
without  some  active  interest  or  pursuit — these  are 
the  things  that  carry  on  the  feelings  of  youth  even 
into  years  when  the  body  may  have  lost  most  of 
its  comeliness  and  its  force." 

Sir  Theodore  Martin  knew  whereof  he  spoke,  for 
when  he  uttered  those  wise  and  wholesome  words 
he  was  himself  in  his  ninetieth  year.  When  he 
was  a  very  old  man  he  was  still  strong  of  mind 
and  body — stronger,  beyond  all  question,  than 
many  a  younger  man  who  listened  to  his  dis 
course. 

How  about  tobacco?  Well,  there  are  in  our 
world  as  many  opinions  with  regard  to  the  use 
of  "the  weed"  as  there  are  men  to  entertain  those 
opinions.  Where  there  is  so  little  agreement  I 
would  not  be  over-confident,  and  yet  I  have  an 
opinion  the  nature  of  which  will  be  understood 
when  I  express  a  willingness  to  discuss  it  over  a 
fragrant  cigar  with  anyone  who  does  not  agree 
with  me.  Tobacco  used  with  moderation  will,  I 
think,  injure  but  few,  while  it  is  a  very  great 
comfort  to  a  large  number  of  men.  Used  with 
out  moderation  it  is  in  nearly  every  case  an  in 
jurious  agent.  I  smoke  as  a  general  thing  three 
cigars  a  day,  one  after  lunch  and  two  in  the 
evening.  I  have  never  discovered  that  my  three 
cigars  a  day  have  ever  hurt  me  in  any  way. 

Everyone  knows  the  charming  lines  written  by 
the  old  English  poet  George  Wisher,  who  flour 
ished  in  the  time  of  James  I.  Wisher  was  a 


OLD  AGE  199 

kind  and  friendly  man,  and  withal  a  man  of  cour 
age  who  espoused  the  cause  of  the  common  people. 
After  the  Restoration  our  poet  found  himself  in 
duress  for  three  long  years.  I  wonder  much  if 
in  all  that  time  he  had  sweet  companionship  in 
those  delicate  clouds  of  tranquillizing  smoke  he 
celebrated  for  us  all  so  well  in  his  delightful 
song: 

"Tobacco's   but  an   Indian   weed, 
Grows  green  at  morn,  cut  down  at  eve; 

It   shows   our   decay, 

We  are  but  clay — 
Think  of  this  when  you  smoke  tobacco. 

The  pipe  that  is  so  lily-white, 
Wherein,  so  many  take  delight, 

Is  broke  with  a  touch, 

Men  are  but  such — 
Think  of  this  when  you  smoke  tobacco. 

The  pipe  that  is  so  foul  within 

Shows  how  man's  soul  is  stained  with  sin; 

And  then,  the  fire 

It  doth  require ! 
Think  of  this  when  you  smoke  tobacco. 

The  ashes  that  are  left  behind 
Do  serve  to  keep  us  all  in  mind 

That  unto  dust 

Return  we  must — 
Think  of  this  when  you  smoke  tobacco. 


200  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

The  smoke  that  doth  on  high  ascend 
Shows  how  man's  life  must  have  an  end. 

The  vapor's  gone, 

Man's  life  is   flown — 
Think  of  this  when  you  smoke  tobacco." 

At  a  banquet  of  dealers  in  tobacco  in  St.  Louis 
some  years  ago  Col.  Ingersoll  made  one  of 
the  most  eloquent  of  all  his  eloquent  addresses. 
With  these  words  he  brought  the  address  to  a 
close,  and  I  think  they  are  words  that  we  should 
never  allow  time  to  erase  from  the  literature  of 
our  land: 

"Four  centuries  ago,  Columbus,  the  adventurous, 
on  the  blessed  island  of  Cuba,  saw  happy  people 
who  rolled  leaves  between  their  lips.  Above  their 
heads  were  little  clouds  of  smoke.  Their  faces 
were  serene,  and  in  their  eyes  was  the  autumnal 
heaven  of  contentment.  These  people  were  kind, 
innocent,  gentle  and  loving.  The  climate  of  Cuba 
is  the  friendship  of  the  earth  and  the  air,  and  of 
this  climate  the  sacred  leaves  were  born — leaves  that 
breed  in  the  mind  of  him  who  uses  them  the  cloud 
less  happy  days  in  which  they  grew.  These  leaves 
make  friends  and  celebrate  with  gentle  rites  the 
vows  of  peace.  They  have  given  consolation  to 
the  world.  They  are  the  friend  of  the  imprisoned, 
of  the  exile,  of  workers  in  mines,  of  fellers  of  trees, 
of  sailors  on  the  deep  sea.  They  are  the  givers  of 
strength  and  calm  to  the  vexed  and  weary  minds  of 
those  who  build  with  thought  and  rear  the  temples 
of  the  soul.  They  tell  of  rest  and  peace.  They 
smooth  the  wrinkled  brows  of  care,  drive  fear  and 
misshapen  dread  from  out  the  mind  and  fill  the 


OLD  AGE  201 

heart  with  hope  and  rest.  Within  their  magic  warp 
and  woof  some  potent  spell  imprisoned  lies  that, 
when  released  by  fire,  does  softly  steal  within  the 
fortress  of  the  brain  and  bind  in  sleep  the  captured 
sentiments  of  care  and  grief.  These  leaves  are  the 
friends  of  the  fireside  and  their  smoke-like  incense 
rises  from  myriads  of  happy  homes.  Cuba  is  the 
smile  of  the  sea," 

It  is  said  that  Sir  Isaac  Newton  was  smoking 
in  his  garden  at  Woolsthorpe  when  the  apple 
fell.  Dr.  Parr  was  never  without  his  pipe,  which 
was  half -filled  with  salt.  He  even  took  his  pipe 
into  drawing-rooms,  where  he  smoked  with  a 
good-natured  and  vulgar  vanity.  Charles  Lamb, 
Carlyle,  and  Tennyson  were  inveterate  smokers. 
General  Grant  smoked  the  strongest  cigars  he 
could  obtain.  Tobacco-smoking  is  a  social  en 
joyment,  while  the  use  of  the  opium-pipe  is  quite 
the  reverse.  Several  smokers  of  opium  may  re 
cline  in  the  same  room,  but  each  smoker  is  wholly 
concerned  with  himself.  A  little  conversation 
there  may  be  at  first,  but  soon  each  smoker  draws 
himself  like  a  snail  into  his  own  shell,  and  all  is 
silence  and  repose.  The  little  conversation  at 
the  beginning  becomes,  so  soon  as  the  drug  takes 
effect,  sententious  and  laconic ;  and  the  choice  bits 
of  foolish  wisdom  that  are  passed  from  smoker 
to  smoker  would  not  be  bad  literature  for  Judge 
or  Puck. 

Some  kind  of  a  stimulant  man  must  have.  It 
is  well,  I  think,  to  recognize  that  fact,  and  to 
set  about  finding  him  something  less  harmful  than 


202  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

opium  or  gin.  Napoleon,  like  Dr.  Johnson,  was 
a  confirmed  tea  drinker.  So  was  Gladstone,  who 
confessed  that  "he  drank  more  tea  between  mid 
night  and  daybreak  than  any  other  member  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  that  the  strongest 
brew  of  it  never  interfered  with  his  sleep."  The 
Dietetic  and  Hygienic  Gazette  has  this  interest 
ing  excerpt: 

"The  dish  of  tea  was  one  of  the  most  important 
factors  in  Johnson's  life.  Proficiency  in  the  gentle 
art  of  tea  brewing  was  regarded  by  him  as  an 
essential  attribute  of  the  perfect  woman,  and  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  his  female  friends  (and  their 
name  was  legion)  did  their  best  to  gratify  his  amia 
ble  weakness. 

"Richard  Cumberland  tells  us  that  his  inordinate 
demands  for  his  favorite  beverage  were  occasionally 
difficult  to  comply  with.  On  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 
reminding  him  that  he  had  already  consumed  eleven 
cups,  he  replied:  'Sir,  I  did  not  count  your  glasses 
of  wine;  why  should  you  number  my  cups  of  tea?' 
adding  laughingly  and  in  perfect  good  humor: 
'Sir,  I  should  have  released  our  hostess  from  any 
further  trouble,  but  you  have  reminded  me  that  I 
want  one  more  cup  to  make  up  the  dozen,  and  I 
must  request  Mrs.  Cumberland  to  round  up  my 
score/ 

"When  he  saw  the  complacency  with  which  the 
lady  of  the  house  obeyed  his  behests  he  said  cheer 
ily:  'Madam,  I  must  tell  you,  for  your  comfort, 
you  have  escaped  much  better  than  a  certain  lady 
did  a  while  ago,  upon  whose  patience  I  intruded 
greatly  more  than  I  have  yours.  She  asked  me 


OLD  AGE  203 

for  no  other  purpose  than  to  make  a  zany  of  me 
and  set  me  gabbing  to  a  parcel  of  people  I  knew 
nothing  of;  so,  madam,  I  had  my  revenge  on  her, 
for  I  swallowed  five  and  twenty  cups  of  her  tea.' 

"Cumberland  declared  that  his  wife  would  gladly 
have  made  tea  for  Johnson  'as  long  as  the  New 
River  could  have  supplied  her  with  water,'  for  it 
was  then,  and  then  only,  he  was  seen  at  his  happiest 
moment." 

Tea  is  a  stimulant,  and  like  coffee  and  cocoa, 
has  a  three-fold  effect — on  the  circulation,  on 
the  spinal  cord,  and  on  the  brain.  It  increases 
the  flow  of  blood  through  the  brain  cells  and 
supplies  them  with  extra  nutriment.  This  again 
results  in  quickened  thought.  If  by  the  use  of 
this  stimulant  thought  could  be  turned  on  when 
needed  and  could  be  again  turned  off  when  no 
longer  required,  tea  would  be  an  ideal  drink. 
Unfortunately,  intellectual  activity  is  kept  up 
when  the  tired  brain  requires  sleep,  and  thus  it 
comes  to  pass  that  large  quantities  of  Dr.  John 
son's  strong  brew  may  prove  even  more  harmful 
than  tobacco  or  spirits  when  used  intemperately. 
Tea,  coffee,  and  cocoa  promote  a  feeling  of  well- 
being  which  is  certainly  most  delightful,  and  it 
is  not  surprising  that  exhausted  brain-workers 
have  been  tempted  to  use  them  immoderately. 
In  preparing  tea  the  leaves  should  never  be  boiled 
or  stewed.  The  boiling  water  should  in  every 
case  be  poured  on  the  leaves,  and  after  standing 
for  a  few  minutes  should  be  again  poured  off. 
Tea  should  not  be  taken  at  the  same  meal  with 


204  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

flesh-meat,  for  it  toughens  the  fibre  of  the  meat 
and  so  renders  it  more  or  less  indigestible.  Bishop 
Berkeley,  the  distinguished  philosopher  whose 
theory  of  the  nonexistence  of  matter  has  never 
been  demolished,  however  much  the  experience 
of  man  may  incline  to  a  different  explanation  of 
the  universe,  was  even  more  fond  of  tea  than 
was  Dr.  Johnson.  He  expired  drinking  his  fa 
vorite  beverage.  One  evening  he  and  his  family 
Were  sitting  and  drinking  tea  together, — he  on 
one  side  of  the  fire,  and  his  wife  on  the  other, 
and  his  daughter  making  the  tea  at  a  little  round 
table  just  behind  him.  She  had  given  him  one 
cup,  which  he  had  drunk.  She  had  poured  out  an 
other  which  he  left  standing  some  time.  "Fa 
ther,"  she  asked,  "will  you  not  drink  your  tea?" 
Upon  his  making  no  answer,  she  stooped  forward 
and  looked  at  him,  and  found  that  he  was  dead. 
That  was  certainly  a  most  beautiful  way  of  dy 
ing — quietly,  with  neither  pain  nor  sad  farewell, 
encircled  by  the  loved  ones,  and  with  the  hand 
resting  upon  a  cup  of  refreshing  beverage. 
Berkeley  directed  in  his  will  that  his  body  should 
be  kept  above  ground  more  than  five  days,  and 
until  it  became  offensive.  It  was  to  remain  un 
disturbed  and  covered  by  the  same  bedclothes,  in 
the  same  bed,  the  head  raised  upon  pillows. 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  fond  of  strong  coffee. 
The  poet  Schiller  found  himself  better  able  to 
compose  when  he  had  before  him  on  the  table  a 
few  partly  decayed  apples ;  and  when  he  could 
not  have  these  he  wanted  coffee  or  champagne. 


OLD  AGE  205 

The  elder  Kean  had  with  him  at  the  theatre 
brandy  and  beef -tea  which  he  drank  between  the 
acts;  he  adapted,  so  it  is  said,  his  dinner  to  the 
part  he  must  play.  Mrs.  Jordan  took  calf's- 
foot- jelly  dissolved  in  sherry.  Gladstone  when 
he  did  not  drink  tea  took  egg  beaten  up  in  sherry. 
Nearly  every  man  uses  in  one  way  or  another 
tobacco.  And  what  a  blessing  the  weed  is  to 
thousands  of  our  race.  Listen  to  Boswell  as  he 
sings  the  praise  of  the  various  kinds  of  snuff: 

"O  snuff!  our  fashionable  end  and  aim, 
Strasburgh,  Rappee,  Dutch,  Scotch,  whate'er  thy 

name; 

Powder  celestial !  quintessence  divine ! 
New  joys  entrance  my  soul,  while  thou  art  mine. 
By  thee  assisted,  ladies  kill  the  day,. 
And  breathe  their  scandal  freely  o'er  their  tea; 
Not  less  they  prize  thy  virtues  when  in  bed; 
One  pinch  of  thee  revives  the  vapored  head, 
Warms  in  the  sun,  refreshes  in  the  breeze, 
Glows  in  the  stars,  and  tickles  in  the  sneeze." 

It  was  tobacco  and  not  literature  that  made  the 
name  of  John  Nicot  famous.  His  two  books  and 
the  first  French  Dictionary,  of  which  he  was  the 
compiler,  could,  never  have  saved  from  oblivion 
his  worthy  name.  It  was  his  introduction  of  the 
plant  into  France,  and  the  adoption  of  his  name 
as  that  of  the  oil  contained  in  the  leaves  of  the 
plant,  that  made  Nicot's  name  familiar  wherever 
the  word  "nicotine"  is  used. 

No  doubt  many  users  of  tobacco  have  injured 


206  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

their  health  and  shortened  their  lives  by  immod 
erate  use  of  the  plant ;  but  surely  the  abuse  of  a 
thing  furnishes  no  valid  argument  against  its 
reasonable  enjoyment.  Nicot  introduced  some 
measure  of  contentment  into  the  pleasant  land  of 
France  when  he  introduced  to  its  citizens  the  weed 
he  loved  so  well.  Moderately  used,  tobacco 
soothes  the  nerves  and  promotes  peace.  I  do 
not  know  who  wrote  the  famous  "Recipe  for  Con 
tent,"  but  surely  it  is  well  worth  remembering, 
and  Nicot  may  be  regarded  as  the  first  mixer 
of  its  wholesome  ingredients : 

"Into  a  neat  little  room,  all  cozy  and  tight, 
Put  two  large  glasses  of  Southern  light; 
And  an  ounce  of  tobacco  and  a  good  easy  chair, 
Then  thicken  with  volumes  all  spicy  and  rare. 
Flavor  with  prints  in  the  usual  way 
And  serve  to  the  taste,  on  a  dull  rainy  day." 

Tobacco,  so  beloved  by  the  old,  is  itself  a  much 
older  plant  than  most  of  those  who  smoke  and 
chew  its  leaves  suppose.  We  may  laugh  if  we 
will  at  the  grotesque  conceit  that  Noah  was  in 
toxicated  with  tobacco  and  not  with  wine,  but 
nevertheless  it  seems  to  have  something  of  the 
solemnity  of  a  Greek  Church  "tradition."  Dr. 
Yates,  simple-minded  man,  tells  us  that  he  saw  a 
picture  of  a  smoking  party  in  one  of  the  ancient 
Egyptian  tombs.  The  author  of  a  little  book 
on  tobacco,  published  in  London  in  1859,  admits 
that  Yates  may  have  seen  the  picture  of  a  smok 
ing  party  which  he  describes,  but  he  slyly  insin- 


OLD  AGE  207 

uates  that  the  original  draughtsman  was  beyond 
all  doubt  not  an  ancient,  but  a  modern  Egyptian 
— some  mischievous  urchin  of  recent  times  who, 
tampering  in  sport  with  a  real  antique,  "builded 
better  than  he  knew,"  and  cheated  an  unsuspect 
ing  archaeologist.  It  has  also  been  suggested 
that  the  old  Egyptian  glass-blowers  may  be  re 
sponsible  for  this  most  absurd  of  blunders. 

We  do  not  now  use  very  much  snuff,  though  it  is 
still  manufactured  for  royalty  abroad  and  for 
Italian  ecclesiastics.  But  everywhere  men,  and 
some  women  as  well,  smoke.  Alcohol  is  even  more 
common  than  tobacco.  It  has  filled  the  world 
with  its  sorrow  and  gladness,  and  I  fear  that  the 
sorrow  is  much  in  excess  of  the  gladness.  Dis 
raeli  consumed  large  quantities  of  champagne 
jelly.  Thomas  Paine  was  too  fond  of  spirits  for 
his  own  good,  and  so  also  was  President  Pierce, 
who  was  a  very  excellent  man  nevertheless.  Poe, 
it  is  whispered,  sometimes  trifled  with  opium,  not 
satisfied  with  things  to  drink. 

About  alcoholic  beverages  there  is,  despite  the 
tragedy  that  is  never  far  away,  much  of  romance 
and  good-fellowship.  But  the  Indian  weed  seems 
to  eclipse  all  other  stimulants  in  the  delightful 
literature  that  gathers  about  it.  And  it  adds 
something  to  its  praise  that  there  cleaves  to  its 
fragrant  leaves  so  little  of  painful  tragedy. 

As  we  advance  in  life  time  seems  to  fly  with  an 
ever  increasing  speed.  And  it  is  well  that  it  is 
so.  Our  happiest  years,  which  are  usually  those 
of  early  life,  linger  as  if  loath  to  depart;  but 


208  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

our  more  helpless  years,  those  of  "the  lean  and 
slippered  pantaloon,"  appear  as  anxious  to  be 
gone  as  does  life  itself,  so  like  from  first  to  last 
"an  empty  dream."  Even  when  old  age  has  be 
come  a  great  burden  its  years  still  appear  swift: 

"The  more  we  live,  more  brief  appear 

Our  life's  succeeding  stages, 

A  day  to  childhood  seems  a  year, 

And  years  like  passing  ages. 

Heaven  gives  our  years  of  fading  strength 

Indemnifying  fleetness; 
And  those  of  youth  a  seeming  length 

Proportioned  to  their  sweetness." 

When  the  end  comes  there  often  comes  with 
it  an  imperative  demand  for  rest.  So  urgent  is 
the  demand  in  some  cases  that  the  aged  sufferer 
is  unable  to  resist  its  pressure,  and  in  a  moment 
of  weakness,  it  may  be,  he  takes  his  own  life. 
Lecky,  in  his  "Map  of  Life,"  calls  attention  to  a 
touching  epitaph  which  he  saw  in  a  German 
churchyard : 

"I  will  arise,  O  Christ,  when  Thou  callest  me;  but 
oh!  let  me  rest  awhile,  for  I  am  very  weary." 

If  we  live  long  enough  it  is  not  unlikely  that  we 
shall  even  wish  for  death.  There  is  an  old  Irish 
legend  that  illustrates  that  fact:  In  a  certain 
lake  in  Munster,  it  is  said,  there  were  two  islands ; 
into  the  first  death  could  never  enter,  but  age  and 
sickness,  and  the  weariness  of  life,  and  parox- 


OLD  AGE  209 

ysms  of  fearful  suffering  were  all  known  there, 
and  they  did  their  work  till  the  inhabitants,  tired 
of  their  immortality,  learned  to  look  upon  the 
opposite  island  as  upon  a  haven  of  repose. 
They  launched  their  barks  upon  its  gloomy  wa 
ters  ;  they  touched  its  shore,  and  they  were  at 
rest. 

With  Plotinus,  I  thank  God  that  my  soul  is 
not  imprisoned  within  an  immortal  body,  for  in 
that  case  I  should  know  a  new  mortality  more  to 
be  feared  than  the  one  of  which  I  now  have 
knowledge.  From  every  agony  possible  to  man 
death  furnishes  a  sure  escape.  A  deathless  body 
would  mean  living  death.  And  yet  men  would 
close  and  fasten  as  with  bolts  of  steel  the  one 
door  without  which  hope  were  impossible.  They 
would  inscribe  over  the  cradle  of  every  infant 
the  words  that  Dante  saw  over  the  Place  of  Doom. 
I  could  not  wish  to  live  were  it  not  permitted  me 
to  die. 

Yet  nevertheless  there  is  a  sense  in  which  body 
and  mind  alike  are  under  the  dominion  of  death. 
Auguste  Comte  said  in  a  moment  of  depression, 
"Death  governs  the  living."  He  may  not  have 
really  believed  the  sovereignty  of  death  so  vast, 
but  that  was  what  he  said,  and  in  a  very  impor 
tant  sense  the  saying  is  true.  Through  the  long 
years  we  are  engaged  in  warding  off  death. 
Thousands  of  men  are  in  bondage  all  their  days 
through  fear  of  death;  and  the  very  persons 
who  reprove  them  for  this  fear,  and  who  en 
deavor  to  rescue  them  from  its  baneful  influence, 


210  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

are  themselves  in  many  cases  in  bondage  to  the 
same  dark  dread.  Porta  was  a  distinguished 
surgeon  at  the  University  of  Pavia.  When,  as 
sometimes  happened,  a  patient  died  on  the  oper 
ating  table  through  the  depressing  influence  of 
fear,  Porta  would,  in  a  transport  of  rage,  throw 
the  instruments  to  the  floor,  shouting,  "Cowards 
die  from  fear!"  Was  the  surgeon  himself  then 
so  brave  a  man?  Ah,  he  also  had  his  phobia. 
He  knew  moments  of  the  deepest  depression. 
Yet  still  it  is  true  that  great  age  often  brings 
its  own  sweet  release,  and  the  fear  dies  before 
the  coming  of  death  itself.  And  sometimes  the 
martial  spirit  common  in  youth  returns  late  in 
life,  and  the  familiar  lines  of  Browning  become 
an  experience: 

"Fear  death? — to  feel  the  fog  in  my  throat, 

The  mist  in  my  face, 

When  the  snows  begin,  and  the  blasts  denote 
I  am  nearing  the  place. 

I  was  ever  a  fighter,  so — one  fight  more, 

The  best  and  the  last! 
I   would   hate   that   death   bandaged   my   eyes, 

and  forbore, 

And  bade  me  creep  past. 
No!  let  me  taste  the  whole  of  it,  fare  like  my 

peers, 
The  heroes  of  old." 

Dr.   Crothers,   a   distinguished   physician   who 
has  given  the  best  years  of  his  life  to  the  study 


OLD  AGE  211 

of  the  psychological  features  of  disease  and  also 
to  the  cure  of  the  drug  habit,  has  propounded 
a  theory  not  wholly  new,  but  still  unlike  any  other 
in  the  results  which  must  follow  its  acceptance. 
He  wrote  in  a  medical  journal:  "There  are 
many  reasons  for  believing  that  we  carry  around 
with  us  great  reserve  powers  and  unknown  ener 
gies  which  are  seldom  used,  and  that  in  old  age 
appeal  to  these  powers  may  give  a  certain  vigor 
entirely  unexpected  which  lengthens  out  life  and 
practically  overcomes  disease."  These  "reserve 
powers  and  unknown  energies"  are,  it  is  to  be 
supposed,  different  from  what  is  known  as  the 
subconscious  self,  but  concerning  that  matter  it 
is  not  necessary  that  we  should  speculate.  Dr. 
Crothers  tells  us  that  did  men  but  realize  the  hid 
den  powers  they  have  always  with  them  the  "deep 
est  despondency  would  disappear  from  the 
continuous  desire  and  effort  to  rise  above  it." 
In  other  words,  this  appeal  may  flood  old  age 
with  a  joy  in  life  when,  under  ordinary  circum 
stances  and  in  most  men,  it  has  departed  with  the 
vigor  of  early  days.  This  theory,  which  is  not 
without  some  evidence  to  sustain  it,  is  yet  new, 
and  must  await  the  results  of  further  investiga 
tion  ;  but  it  certainly  presents  an  alluring  hope. 
Think  what  it  really  means  to  flood  the  sterile 
places  of  old  age  with  the  revitalizing  tides  of 
joy  and  expectancy,  and  to  exterminate  the  rank 
and  noxious  weeds  of  despondency,  doubt,  and 
suspicion.  We  plant  flowers  over  graves,  but 
still  the  graves  remain.  Is  this  new  theory  an- 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

other  planting  of  flowers  over  graves,  or  is  there 
here  an  actual  revitalizing  and  a  resurrection  of 
the  man?  Time  only  can  answer  that  question. 
But  still,  one  way  or  the  other,  old  age,  as  has 
been  shown,  need  not  be  utterly  sad  and  lonely. 
Very  much  depends  upon  temperament,  which 
is  but  another  name  for  natural  heritage,  and 
over  that  we  have  no  control.  All  we  can  do 
with  it  is  to  accept  of  it  in  whatever  form  it 
comes,  and  so  to  make  of  it  the  best  use  we  can. 

Much  of  the  loneliness  of  age  is  occasioned  by 
the  death  of  early  friends  and  companions.  The 
man  who  survives  these  in  a  certain  sense  survives 
himself.  New  friends  are  not  easily  made  after 
one  has  reached  the  age  of  fifty.  And  with  the 
loneliness  of  declining  years  there  comes  a  con 
sciousness  of  the  approach  of  a  loneliness  even 
deeper  than  any  of  which  we  have  made  mention 
• — the  loneliness  of  death. 

"A  lonely  hour  is  on  its  way  to  each, 
To  all;  for  death  knows  no  companionship." 

All  the  supreme  places  and  conditions  of  life 
are  lonely.  Thousands  of  men  may  die  in  battle 
within  a  very  circumscribed  area  and  at  the  same 
time,  yet  to  each  man  death  comes  as  a  solitary 
event.  Our  associations  are  superficial  when  com 
pared  with  our  isolations.  Since,  then,  we  cannot 
escape  the  great  solitudes  of  our  existence,  is  it 
not  well  that  we  give  some  time  to  their  consid 
eration?  We  may,  if  we  will,  look  Destiny  in 
the  face,  and  thus  acquaint  ourselves  in  advance 


OLD  AGE  213 

with  the  "lonely  hour,"  and  we  may  thus  in  some 
measure  disarm  it  of  its  terrors.  Every  man 
should  learn  to  be  alone  without  discomfort  to 
himself.  Gibbon  wrote,  "On  the  approach  of 
spring  I  withdraw  without  reluctance  from  the 
noisy  and  extensive  scene  of  crowds  without  com 
pany  and  dissipation  without  pleasure."  We 
need  not  tarry  for  the  spring.  Each  day  brings 
with  it  its  own  opportunity: 

"Sometime  between  the  dawn  and  dark, 

Go  thou,  O  friend,  apart, 
That  a  cool  drop  of  heaven's  dew 

May  fall  into  thy  heart. 
Thus,  with  a  spirit  soothed  and  cured 

Of  restlessness  and  pain, 
Thou  mayest,  nerved  with  force  divine, 

Take  up  thy  work  again." 

There  have  been  many  definitions  of  old  age, 
but  perhaps  the  best  of  them  all  is  that  which 
represents  it  as  the  period  in  life  when  a  man 
no  longer  adjusts  himself  to  his  environment. 
The  difficulty  with  this  definition  is  that  it  is, 
under  certain  limitations,  as  applicable  to  infancy 
as  to  old  age.  And  still  further,  sickness  as 
well  as  age  may  render  the  adjustment  impossible. 
According  to  Dr.  George  M.  Beard  ("Legal  Re 
sponsibility  in  Old  Age")  the  productive  periods 
in  man's  life  grade  themselves  thus: 

The  Brazen  decade  is  between  20  and  30. 
The  Golden  decade  is  between  30  and  40. 
The  Silver  decade  is  between  40  and  50. 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

The  Iron  decade  is  between  50  and  60. 
The  Tin  decade  is  between  60  and  70. 
The  Wooden  decade  is  between  70  and  80. 

The  best  and  most  productive  period,  it  would 
appear,  is  the  fifteen  years  between  the  ages  of 
thirty  and  forty-five.  And  in  that  period  the 
best  two  years,  which  must  of  course  be  as  well 
the  best  in  a  man's  entire  life,  are  the  two  be 
tween  thirty-eight  and  forty.  There  are  many 
exceptions  to  the  rule,  but  take  the  world  and 
the  ages  into  account,  and  I  think  the  general 
results  of  investigation  will  indicate  the  period 
of  time  named  as  usually  the  best  for  work  of 
whatever  kind  in  the  life  of  man.  The  procre- 
ative  function  in  woman  ceases  between  forty  and 
fifty,  which  is  just  the  period  when  the  physical 
and  mental  powers  begin  to  decline.  Thus  it 
comes  to  pass  that  we  are  spared  the  misfortune 
of  an  earth  largely  peopled  by  underlings. 

In  1888  the  following  table  of  brain-workers 
was  prepared.  The  men  named  were  at  the  time, 
most  of  them,  living,  and  possessed  of  the  vigor 
of  their  faculties.  The  table  is  useful  as  show 
ing,  what  most  students  of  biometry  know,  that 
brain-work  is  favorable  to  longevity: 

George  Bancroft,  Historian , ,.  87 

F.  A.  P.  Barnard,  College  President 79 

J.  S.  Blackie,  Scholar 79 

John  Bright,   Statesman 77 

Robert  Browning,  Poet 76 

Robert  E.  Bunsen,  Chemist 77 


OLD  AGE  215 

M.  E.   Chevreul,  Chemist 102 

J.  D.  Dana,  Geologist 75 

Jefferson  Davis,  Statesman 80 

Ignatius  Dollinger,   Theologian 89 

John  Ericsson,  Engineer 85 

Octave   Feuillet,   Author 76 

David  D.  Field,  Lawyer 83 

W.  E.  Gladstone,  Statesman 79 

Jules    Grevy,    Statesman 81 

Oliver  W.  Holmes,  Poet 79 

Leo  XIII.,  Pope 78 

H.  F.  Manning,  Cardinal 80 

J.  Louis  Meissonier,  Painter 76 

James  McCosh,  Metaphysician 77 

J.  H.  Newman,  Cardinal 87 

Richard  Owen,  Anatomist 84? 

Andrew  P.  Peabody,  Clergyman 77 

J.  L.  A.  Quatref ages,  Naturalist 78 

Alfred  Tennyson,  Poet 79 

Ambroise  Thomas,  Composer. 77 

Guiseppe  Verdi,  Composer 74« 

Thomas  E.  Vermilye,  Clergyman 85 

R.  W.  Weir,  Painter 85 

J.  G.  Whittier,  Poet 84 

T.  D.  Woolsey,  Publicist 87 

Dr.  Nascher,  a  New  York  physician,  tells  us 
that  while  the  debility  of  old  age  cannot  be  pre 
vented,  some  of  its  effects  may  be  relieved,  the 
mental  attitude  may  be  improved,  and  the  vigor 
of  earlier  days  may  be  in  some  slight  degree  re 
stored.  The  cause  of  senile  debility  is  to  be  found 


216  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

in  the  waste  of  muscle,  cartilage,  bone,  and  nerve 
tissue  consequent  on  impaired  metabolism. 
Whatever  benefits  the  mental  condition  improves 
the  debility.  Growing  old  is  in  great  measure 
due  to  mental  influences,  and  yet  those  influences 
are  in  turn  largely  due  to  the  physical  changes 
named.  Dr.  Nascher,  with  no  thought  of  es 
thetics,  recommends  phosphorus  and  arsenic,  and 
would  introduce  various  hygienic  and  dietetic 
measures.  These  would,  no  doubt,  in  some  de 
gree  lessen  the  waste  of  tissue  that  brings  about 
the  decrepitude  of  old  age.  Small  doses  of 
morphine  are  followed  by  marked  improvement, 
and  where  age  is  far  advanced  the  drug  habit 
need  give  no  concern.  An  intellectual  life  wards 
off  in  some  measure  the  approach  of  old  age,  as 
has  been  shown  not  only  in  the  table  just  given, 
but  in  many  other  tables,  and  very  forcibly  in 
the  following  synopsis: 

AVERAGE    LENGTH    OF    LIFE 

Years. 

Poets    66 

Painters  and  sculptors 66 

Musicians     62 

Novelists    67 

Superior  officers 71 

Philosophers    65 

Historians    73 

Inventors 72 

Political   agitators 69 

Statesmen    . .. > 71 


OLD  AGE  217 

The  four  most  important  natural  indications 
of  long  life  are:  1.  Descent,  at  least  on  one 
side,  from  long-lived  parents.  2.  Serenity  and 
cheerfulness  of  disposition,  with  which  is  asso 
ciated  contentment.  3.  A  well-proportioned 
physical  frame.  4.  The  habit  of  sleeping1  long 
and  soundly. 

The  physical  features  which  indicate  a  long 
life  are  large  heart,  lungs,  digestive  organs,  and 
brain ;  a  long  body  with  comparatively  short 
limbs ;  a  long  hand  with  a  somewhat  heavy  palm 
and  short  fingers ;  a  deeply  seated  brain,  as  indi 
cated  by  a  low  orifice  to  the  ear;  blue  hazel 
or  brown  hazel  eyes;  large,  open,  and  free  nos 
trils,  which  indicate  large  lungs. 

Women  live  longer  than  men,  and  the  mar 
ried  out-live  the  single.  The  longer  life  of 
woman  is,  no  doubt,  due  in  great  measure  to  her 
domestic  retirement.  The  coming  woman,  with 
her  new  public  and  political  duties,  will  find  the 
emancipation  of  her  sex  attended  with  a  de 
creasing  length  in  life.  A  happy  marriage  pro 
motes  cheerfulness  and  contentment,  both  of 
which  favor  longevity. 

The  following  rules,  it  seems  to  the  writer, 
lived  up  to,  will  greatly  favor  longevity: 

1.  Sleep  eight  hours. 

2.  Sleep  on  your  right  side. 

3.  Have  the  window  of  your  bedroom  open 
most  of  the  night. 

4.  Have  your  bedstead  slightly  removed  from 
the  wall. 


218  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

5.  Let  your  bath  in  the  morning  be  at  the 
temperature  of  the  body. 

6.  Eat  sparingly  of  meat. 

7.  Observe  moderation  in  the  use  of  alcohol. 

8.  Exercise  in  the  open  air  every  day. 

9.  Allow  no   animals   to   sleep   in  your  bed 
room. 

10.  See  that  you  have  some  variety  in  your 
life. 

11.  Take  for  yourself  a  sufficient  number  of 
holidays. 

12.  Limit  your  ambition. 

13.  Drink  freely  of  pure  cool  water,  but  avoid 
iced-water. 

14.  Restrain  your  passions. 

Old  age  may  be  divested  of  many  of  its  dis 
abilities,  but  it  can  never  be  other  than  lonely. 
The  old  man  in  out-living  his  friends  has,  as 
has  been  already  said,  out-lived  himself.  He 
finds  it  hard  to  affiliate  with  the  young,  and  the 
men  of  his  own  years  are  gone  from  him  for 
ever.  His  mind,  soon  wearied  by  even  trivial 
things,  wearies  as  well  of  the  isolation,  and  in 
many  cases  death  itself  becomes  even  attractive. 
Thus  in  his  swan-song  a  poet  complains  that 
Death  has  entirely  forgotten  him : 

"Go  to  your  nests,  rooks,  in  the  windy  trees, 
And  vex  not  me  with  your  ill-omened  caw; 
I  am  too  old  to  live  beneath  Fear's  law; 
Hopes  fever  me  no  longer  nor  doubts  freeze. 
Half  I  forget  what  makes  the  blackbird  sing 
So  loud  in  spring. 


OLD  AGE  219 

The  earth  grows  old  around  me;  planets  wane; 

April's  green  glamour  is  spread  out  in  vain; 

The  rose  sends  nets  of  fragrance  from  her  tree, 

But  in  her  webs  of  beauty  takes  not  me; 

Out  of  the  road  I  never  turn  my  feet 

For  search  of  moonwort  or  of  meadowsweet. 

The  sea  sings  loud  for  youth.     I  hear  it  moan, 
Counting  its  rocky  ramparts  stone  by  stone, 
And  all  the  green-haired  people  of  the  waves 
They  do  but  make  wild  music  over  graves, 
The  graves  of  broken  ships  and  drowned  men, 
And  cities  that  the  sea  has  ta'en  again. 

I  hate  the  gulls  and  terns  that  dip  and  cry 
About  the  white  cliffs,  along  the  sundering  sea, 
Or  I  should  hate,  if  hate  had  not  passed  by, 
Even  as  love  has,  and  forgotten  me. 
Time  has  outdistanced  my  slow  feet — behold, 
I  have  outlingered  Death.     I  cannot  die; 
I  am  too  old." 


VII 
CULTURE 

"The  Middle  Ages  had  their  wars  and  agonies, 
but  also  intense  delights.  Their  gold  was  dashed 
with  blood,  but  ours  is  sprinkled  with  dust.  Their 
life  was  inwoven  with  white  and  purple,  ours  is  one 
seamless  stuff  of  brown." 

— Ruskin. 

"Live  with  the  gods." 

— Marcus  Aurelius. 


CULTURE 

THE  word  "culture"  is  not  easily  defined. 
Webster  is  more  witty  than  wise  when  he 
tells  us  that  "culture  is  the  act  of  cultivating." 
He  reminds  us  of  the  physician  who  was  sure 
that  death  was  "substantially  the  loss  of  life." 
We  are  told  that  culture  means  production,  but 
the  words  are  not  synonymous,  for  it  is  possible 
to  produce  the  fruit  of  folly  and  ignorance. 
We  are  again  informed  that  culture  means  ad 
vancement,  and  yet  one  may  advance  in  the 
wrong  direction.  Principal  Sharp  says  that 
"culture  is  the  educing  or  drawing  out  of  what 
is  potential  in  man."  It  is  the  training  of  his 
faculties  and  energies,  and  the  directing  of  them 
to  their  true  ends.  For  all  practical  purposes 
Principal  Sharp's  definition  is  entirely  satisfac 
tory,  unless  it  be  objected  that  it  is  in  reality 
a  description  rather  than  a  definition. 

The  word  training  covers  all  the  distance  be 
tween  a  civilized  man  and  his  savage  ancestors. 
In  a  state  of  nature  we  possess  in  embryo  those 
faculties  of  mind  and  powers  of  body  which, 
when  trained,  become  the  creators  and  exponents 
of  civilization.  There  were  potentially  in  our 
savage  ancestors,  as  they  ran  naked  through  the 
forests,  the  English  Magna  Charta,  the  com 
monly  received  translation  of  the  New  Testa 
ment,  the  plays  of  Shakspeare,  and  the  Ameri 
can  Declaration  of  Independence.  There  is  in 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

our  human  nature  a  wonderful  wealth  of  intel 
lectual  material,  irrespective  of  everything  re 
sembling  spiritual  experience. 

We  must  distinguish  between  culture  and  mere 
polish.  The  two  are  often  confounded,  the  one 
with  the  other,  and  yet  they  are  entirely  differ 
ent  things.  Polish  is  superficial,  that  is  to  say, 
it  has  to  do  with  the  surface  only,  while  culture 
is  a  change  in  quality.  The  distinction  is  clear 
enough  in  matters  connected  with  social  life. 
It  requires  more  than  a  French  finishing  school 
to  make  a  lady,  and  more  than  a  gold-rimmed 
eye-glass  to  make  a  gentleman.  One  is  neither 
lady  nor  gentleman  so  long  as  the  moral  nature 
remains  uncultivated.  As  well  might  an  uncul 
tivated  patch  of  ground  be  taken  for  a  garden. 
A  gentleman  is  a  gentleman  at  heart  or  he  is  not 
one  in  any  sense  of  the  word.  A  true  lady  is 
gentle,  modest,  conciliatory,  cordial,  thoughtful 
of  others,  kind  to  her  servants,  and  charitable 
in  her  judgments.  But  in  all  this  there  is  some 
thing  more  than  the  developing  of  mere  natural 
resources.  Doubtless  the  possibilities  of  an  oak 
are  inclosed  by  the  shell  of  the  acorn,  but  light, 
air,  and  moisture  have  entered  into  the  account. 
The  light  of  sun  and  star,  summer-rain  and 
winter-frost,  and  all  the  juices  of  the  earth  are 
in  that  tree.  A  thousand  outside  influences 
unite  with  inward  possibilities  to  make  us  what  we 
are.  Man  is  in  a  certain  sense  an  epitome  of  the 
universe,  for  all  its  forces  and  substances  enter 
into  the  mystery  of  his  being.  He  is  one  with 


CULTURE  225 

these.     The    old    English    poet    Herbert    knew 
this  when  he  wrote  of  man : 

"He  is  in  little  all  the  sphere. 
Herbs  gladly  cure  our  flesh,  because  that  they 
Find  their  acquaintance  there." 

We  are  from  the  intellectual  point  of  view 
>diat  we  are  able  to  perceive.  The  Spirit  said 
to  boastful  Faust,  "Thou'rt  like  the  spirit  whom 
thou  can'st  comprehend — not  me!"  and  Faust 
replied : 

"Not  thee? 
Whom  then? 
I,  God's  own  image! 
And  not  rank  with  thee!" 

But  the  Spirit  condescended  to  no  answer, 
and  simply  vanished.  We  are  what  we  are  able 
to  perceive  and  comprehend.  And  it  should  be 
added  that  training  is  essential  to  the  develop 
ment  of  perception.  The  sailor  will  with  un 
assisted  eye  derive  more  knowledge  of  a  passing 
ship  far  away  than  a  landsman  can  gather  with  a 
powerful  glass.  Where  we  see  only  confusion 
the  artist  perceives  exquisite  beauty.  A  woman 
visiting  the  studio  of  Turner  looked  intently  at 
one  of  his  pictures  and  said,  "Mr.  Turner,  I 
go  often  to  the  place  you  have  painted,  but  never 
do  I  see  wrhat  you  represent  upon  that  canvas." 
"Ah,  Madam,"  replied  the  artist,  "don't  you 
wish  you  could  see  it?"  You  turn  to  a  noble 
poem,  every  line  of  which  throbs  with  beauty, 


226  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

but  the  poet  found  his  splendor  in  the  dust. 
You  walked  directly  over  it  without  discovering 
what  the  poet  saw  under  his  feet  and  all  about 
him.  Beauty  is  everywhere,  but  there  must  be 
a  trained  and  educated  eye  with  which  to  dis 
cover  it. 

"The  poem  hangs  on  the  berry-bush, 
When  comes  the  poet's  eye, 
And  the  street  is  one  long  masquerade 
When  Shakspeare  passes  by." 

A  man  like  Emerson  lives  in  a  realm  of  beauti 
ful  perceptions: 

"Let  me  go  where'er  I  will 
I  hear  a  sky-born  music  still: 
It  sounds  from  all  things  old, 
It  sounds  from  all  things  young, 
From  all  that's  fair,  from  all  that's  foul, 
Peals  out  a  cheerful  song. 
It  is  not  only  in  the  rose, 
It  is  not  only  in  the  bird, 
Not  only  where  the  rainbow  glows, 
Nor  in  the  song  of  woman  heard, 
But  in  the  darkest,  meanest  things 
There  alway,  alway  something  sings. 

'Tis  not  in  the  high  stars  alone, 
Nor  in  the  cups  of  budding  flowers, 
Nor  in  the  redbreast's  mellow  tone, 
Nor  in  the  bow  that  smiles  in  showers, 
But  in  the  mud  and  scum  of  things 
There  alway,  alway  something  sings." 


CULTURE  227 

You  think  you  hear  music,  but  perhaps  what 
you  hear  with  the  dull,  untrained  ear  is  little 
better  than  jangling  discord  as  compared  with 
the  delicious  melody  the  true  musician  hears. 
Sailor,  artist,  poet,  musician  are  all  products  of 
different  kinds  of  culture.  We  may  add  the 
saint  if  we  will,  for  to  this  same  process  of  train 
ing  may  be  referred  all  his  fineness  of  moral  per 
ception,  strength  against  temptation,  holiness  of 
disposition,  and  loftiness  of  purpose.  Behind 
the  beauty  of  his  life,  and  inseparably  associated 
with  it,  is  the  austere  reality  of  duty.  No  man 
ever  dreamed  himself  into  either  earthly  or 
heavenly  wisdom.  No  man  ever  wished  himself 
into  a  character.  If  one  would  have  these  he 
must  endure  hardness;  and  to  the  hardness  there 
must  be  added  continuance  in  welldoing.  There 
is  in  morals  a  certain  "squatter  sovereignty" 
whereby  continued  exercise  of  a  grace  or  virtue 
renders  that  grace  or  virtue  the  possession  of  the 
man  who  exercises  it.  Shakspeare  makes  one 
of  his  characters  advise  that  if  one  be  without 
a  virtue  he  assume  it.  Therein  lies  a  world  of 
philosophy.  Assume  the  virtue  long  enough, 
and  moral  "squatter  sovereignty"  perfects  the 
title.  True  culture  has  in  it  a  certain  element 
of  hardness,  to  which  is  added  continuance.  The 
Sacred  Writer  puts  it  in  a  line:  "Having  done 
all,  stand." 

It  should  be  said  that  the  higher  forms  of 
culture  imply  sympathy.  Such  culture  is  to  be 
found  only  where  advanced  civilization  prevails. 


228  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

"Every  man  for  himself"  is  the  motto  of  savage 
life ;  "United  we  stand"  is  that  of  an  enlightened 
community.  "No  man  liveth  unto  himself,  and 
no  man  dieth  unto  himself."  We  are  one  race, 
and  have  common  interests.  True  culture  is 
altruistic.  And  so  it  comes  to  pass  that  in  the 
end  it  is  one  with  civilization. 

The  literatures  of  ancient-  Greece  and  Rome 
are  so  fragmentary  and,  to  us,  so  unreal  that 
there  is  now  difficulty  in  believing  they  were 
once  adequate  for  the  intellectual  expression  of 
a  living  people.  Our  literature  will  suffer  no 
such  change.  The  printing-press  imparts  to 
even  the*  most  worthless  book  a  stamp  of  immor 
tality.  Of  all  competitions  the  most  strenuous 
is  that  of  authorship.  Merchants  compete  with 
traders  of  their  own  time  only,  while  the  author 
must  compete  with  not  only  the  living  but  with 
the  dead  of  all  lands  and  ages.  Every  new 
century  increases  the  emulation,  and  but  for  the 
art  of  printing  not  one  of  the  thousands  of 
modern  writers  could  hope  for  even  the  most  tran 
sitory  remembrance.  Here  is  our  great  ad 
vantage  over  the  ancients.  The  press  so  in 
creases  the  number  of  copies  and  so  distributes 
them  that  no  misfortune  will  ever  be  able  to 
entirely  destroy  the  book  that  has  once  been  pub 
lished.  Countless  works  known  to  men  and 
women  in  ancient  Greece  have  either  wholly  or 
partly  disappeared.  Where  are  the  lost  plays  of 
^Eschylus  and  Sophocles?  Every  copy  of  a 
book  was  laboriously  written  out  by  a  human 


CULTURE  229 

hand,  and  of  course  there  could  be  but  few  copies 
of  any  single  book — there  were  never  enough  of 
these  to  insure  immortality.  Time  and  disaster 
smote  them,  and  they  perished.  It  is  very  dif 
ferent  with  us.  The  press  gives  to  even  the 
meanest  production  of  the  human  mind  its  im- 
primature ;  and  to  the  "Let  it  be  printed !"  is 
added  the  sure  and  impressive  word,  "Forever." 
The  printing  press  is  quite  as  likely  to  prove 
a  foe  as  to  show  itself  a  friend  of  culture.  Even 
as  Nature  favors  alike  the  trained  and  experi 
enced  physician  and  the  callow  empiric,  making 
no  distinction  between  them,  even  so  does  the 
impartial  press  give  to  both  good  and  bad  in 
literature  the  stamp  of  permanence.  It  is  true 
that  the  popularity  of  both  will  not  be  the  same, 
and  that  the  classic  will  be  at  all  times  more  or 
less  obtainable  while  other  and  less  important 
works  will  sink  into  obscurity,  but  Gutemberg's 
discovery  gives  and  will  continue  to  give  to  all 
published  books  something  resembling  an  even 
chance. 

Leibnitz  thought  that  the  press,  by  preserving 
so  many  unworthy  books,  would  become  in  time 
an  evil  rather  than  a  benefit  to  the  world.  He 
believed  that  the  press,  by  bestowing  an  indis 
criminate  immortality  upon  modern  books,  would 
in  a  large  measure  destroy  the  worth  of  that 
immortality.  The  Water  Poet  tells  us  that  the 
greatest  names  in  English  literature  owe  their 
continued  existence  to  paper  and  type,  and  that 
for  want  of  these  the  great  names  of  ancient 


230  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

times  have  either  perished  or  suffered  some 
eclipse.  Thus  our  old  Water  Poet  sings,  and 
that  we  have  his  song  is  due  for  the  most  part 
to  the  advantage  which  printing  gives : 

"In  paper  many  a  Poet  now  survives, 
Or  else  their  lines  had  perished  with  their  lives. 
Old  Chaucer,  Gower,  and  Sir  Thomas  More, 
Sir  Philip  Sidney  who  the  laurel  wore; 
Spenser  and  Shakspeare  did  in  art  excel, 
Sir  Edward  Dyer,  Greene,  Nash,  Daniel, 
Silvester,  Beaumont,  Sir  John  Harrington; 
Forgetfulness  their  works  would  over-run, 
But  that  in  Paper  they  immortally 
Do  live  in  spite  of  Death,  and  cannot  die. 

And  many  there  are  living  at  this  day 
Which  do  in  Paper  their  true  worth  display. 
As  Davis,  Dray  ton,  and  the  learned  Donne, 
Johnson  and  Chapman,  Marston,  Middleton, 
With  Rowley,  Fletcher,  Wither,  Massinger, 
Heywood,  and  all  the  rest  where'er  they  are, 
Must  say  their  lines  but  for  the  paper  sheet 
Had  scarcely  ground  whereon  to  set  their  feet." 

Greece  and  Italy  were  in'  ancient  times  the 
true  home  of  culture.  Other  countries,  as  Egypt 
and  the  lands  of  the  far  East,  developed  some 
thing  of  plastic  and  literary  art,  though  nothing 
that  might  be  compared  with  the  artistic  evolu 
tion  of  Athens  and  Rome.  Greece  is  no  longer 
the  seat  of  learning,  nor  is  she  closely  connected 
with  fine  artistic  advancement ;  but  Italy  remains 
to-day  as  of  old  the  center  of  a  world-culture 


CULTURE  231 

that  draws  to  itself  from  all  over  the  earth  the 
lovers  of  whatever  is  noble  and  beautiful  in  feel 
ing  and  expression.  An  American  poet,  Mr. 
Robert  Underwood  Johnson,  has  voiced  this  de 
light  of  the  cultivated  mind  in  all  that  modern 
as  well  as  ancient  Italy  means  to  those  who  un 
derstand  and  love  beauty  for  its  own  sake: 

"Oh,  to  be  kin  to  Keats  as  urn  with  urn 

Shares  the  same  Roman  earth! — to  sleep,  apart, 
Near  to  the  bloom  that  once  was  Shelley's  heart, 
Where  bees,  like  lingering  lovers,  re-return; 
Where  the  proud  pyramid, 
To  brighter  glory  bid, 

Gives   Cestius  his  longed-for  fame,  marking  im 
mortal  Art. 

Or,  in  loved  Florence,  to  repose  beside 
Our  trinity  of  singers !     Fame  enough 
To  neighbor  lordly  Landor,  noble  Clough, 
And  her,  our  later  sibyl,  sorrow-eyed. 
Oh,  tell  me — not  their  arts 
But  their  Italian  hearts 

Won   for  their   dust  that   narrow   oval,  than   the 
world  more  wide ! 

So  might  I  lie  where  Browning  should  have  lain, 

My  'Italy'  for  all  the  world  to  read, 
Like  his  on  the  palazzo.     For  thy  pain, 
In  losing  from  thy  rosary  that  bead, 
England   accords  thee  room 
Around  his  minster  tomb — 

A   province   conquered   of   thy   soul,   and   not   an 
Arab  slain!" 


VIII 
VICISTI  GALILJEE 

"Julian  alone  attempted  to  upbuild  pagan  society 
on  strange  lines  of  ethics,  philosophy,  and  mysti 
cism.  A  narrow-visioned  Don  Quixote,  he  strove 
after  an  impossible  goal.  But  like  Don  Quixote, 
he,  too,  was  a  noble  character  appealing  to  the 
imagination,  and  it  is  fitting  that  his  dying  voice  (so 
the  legend  goes)  called  forth  'the  sun,  the  sun !' — 
a  cry  to  the  ideal." 

— George  S.  Hellman. 

"Thou  hast  conquered,  O  pale  Galilean, 
The  world  has  grown  gray  at  thy  breath." 

< — Swinburne. 


VICISTI  GALILEE 

rilHE  genuineness  of  the  traditional  iast 
JL  words  of  the  Roman  Emperor,  Flavius 
Claudius  Julian,  may  be  doubted.  The  Apos 
tate,  for  so  they  named  him  when  he  renounced 
the  poor  figment  of  Christianity  which  prevailed 
in  his  day,  is  reported  to  have  exclaimed  in  the 
moment  of  death,  "Vicisti,  Galilaee !"— Thou  hast 
conquered,  O  Galilean!  These  traditional  last 
words  rest  mainly  upon  the  authority  of  Theo- 
doretus  (111:25),  though  reenforced  by  the  less 
important  authority  of  other  writers.  The  cry 
of  despair  attributed  to  the  dying  monarch  lends 
itself  with  wonderful  facility  to  well  nigh  every 
kind  of  artistic  and  literary  effect.  Swinburne's 
"Last  Oracle"  turns  it  to  marvellous  account: 

"Dark  the  shrine  and  dumb  the  fount  of  song  thence 

welling, 
Save  for  words  more  sad  than  tears  of  blood  that 

said: 
'Tell   the   king,    on    earth    has    fallen    the    glorious 

dwelling, 
And   the   watersprings   that   spake    are    drenched 

and  dead. 
Not  a  cell  is  left  the  God,  no  roof,  no  cover; 

In  his  hand  the  prophet  Laurel  flowers  no  more.' 
And  the  great  king's  high  sad  heart,  thy  true  last 

lover, 

Felt  thine  answer  pierce  and  cleave  it  to  the  core. 
And  he  bowed  down  his  hopeless  head 
In  the  drift  of  the  wild  world's  tide, 
235 


236  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

And  dying,  'Thou  hast  conquered/  he  said, 
'Galilean,'  he  said  it,  and  died." 

The  over-dramatic  effect  of  the  "Vicisti, 
Galilsee!"  awakens  something  more  than  mere 
suspicion  that  after  all  the  Emperor  may  never 
have  said  anything  of  the  kind;  and  yet,  true  or 
false,  the  picturesqueness  of  the  phrase  disarms 
adverse  criticism.  The  other  last  words,  though 
quite  as  venerable,  and  far  more  likely  to  be 
authentic,  have  never  prevailed,  and  never  can 
prevail  against  the  dramatic  force  and  poetic 
beauty  of  the  "Vicisti,  Galilaee!"  The  other 
last  words,  tame  and  commonplace,  but  probably 
genuine,  are,  "Sun,  thou  hast  betrayed  me!" 
When  Julian  turned  from  following  the  Galilean 
he  became  a  worshiper  of  the  sun.  The  sun 
was  the  source  of  all  terrestrial  life.  From  it 
sprang  beauty  and  gladness.  It  smiled  upon 
the  sleeping  earth,  and  the  light  of  day  filled  the 
heavens  with  glory.  Field  and  forest  were  astir, 
the  flowers  exhaled  their  sweetest  odors,  and  man, 
his  every  step  quickening  with  fresh  energy, 
went  forth  to  achieve  new  conquests,  and  to  de 
light  himself  with  increased  possessions.  Primi 
tive  idolatry  in  every  land  turned  its  face  heaven 
ward,  and  with  reverential  posture  and  praying 
lips  saluted  sun,  moon,  and  stars.  Gibbon 
quotes  Julian's  philosophic  discourse  with  his 
friends  during  his  last  hours,  and  represents  the 
Emperor  as  reaffirming  his  belief  in  the  doctrines 
of  Pythagoras  and  Plato.  He  said  that  his  soul 


VICISTI  GALLIL.EE  237 

would  soon  be  united  with  the  Divine  Substance 
of  the  Universe.  He  still  had  faith  in  the  Sun 
though  he  reproached  that  deity  with  having  de 
ceived  him. 

The  scene  that  followed  the  fatal  wounding 
of  the  Emperor,  and  the  sudden  destruction  of 
his  every  hope  and  plan  touching  the  restoration 
of  Paganism,  must  have  been  more  than  simply 
impressive.  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  who  was 
with  the  army  at  the  time,  and  should,  therefore, 
have  had  exact  knowledge  of  the  last  moments  of 
Julian,  likens  the  scene  to  that  which  Plato 
draws  of  the  death  of  Socrates.  It  must,  how 
ever,  be  remembered  that  the  historian's  predi 
lections  were  strongly  on  the  side  of  the  Em 
peror. 

Julian's  childhood  was  passed  under  influences 
nominally  religious  but  in  reality  selfish,  ambi 
tious,  and  cruel.  Yet  his  early  education  in 
cluded  a  knowledge  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  and 
of  what  may  be  described  as  the  technique  of 
public  worship  and  church-government.  The 
Christian  Faith  as  held  by  Constantius  II.  was 
neither  an  attractive  nor  a  helpful  system  of 
religious  belief.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  brutal 
and  savage — not  much  better  than  the  Paganism 
it  had  supplanted.  Constantius  was  himself  far 
from  being  a  brilliant  exemplar  of  the  virtues 
upon  which  he  insisted.  His  mind  was  ill-formed 
and  stupid,  and,  as  such  minds  usually  are,  stub 
born  and  intractable.  He  was  lacking  in  rev 
erence  for  sacred  things.  Without  authority 


238  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

and  with  neither  moral  nor  intellectual  fitness  he 
aspired  to  be  both  leader  and  absolute  ruler  of 
the  early  church.  Without  troubling  himself 
about  councils  he  exalted  and  deposed  whomsoever 
he  would,  requiring  in  all  things  complete  and 
unhesitating  submission  to  his  autocratic  will. 
He  was  one  of  the  earliest  of  a  long  line  of  spir 
itual  bosses,  ruling  with  narrow-minded  severity 
the  humiliated  consciences  of  his  fellow-men. 
He  called  himself  "Lord  of  the  Universe,"  and 
for  the  old  title,  "His  Majesty,"  or  its  equivalent, 
he  substituted  the  meaningless,  and  it  may  be 
blasphemous,  appellation  of  "His  Eternity." 
Under  his  misrule  violence  and  greed  were  every 
where. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  under  such  influence 
and  surrounded  by  such  disorder,  Julian  early 
doubted  the  truth  of  a  faith  that,  calling  itself 
after  the  name  of  Christ,  was  yet  represented 
by  advocates  and  followers  who  made  no  secret 
of  their  shameful  and  vicious  living.  There  is 
some  reason  for  believing  that  he  was  not  wholly 
sincere  when  under  such  tutelage  as  has  been  de 
scribed,  he  made  profession  of  his  faith  in  the 
religion  of  the  Galilean.  Why  should  he  have 
been  sincere?  On  every  side  were  dishonesty 
and  all  kinds  of  wrong-doing.  The  most  sacred 
things  were  despised  and  venerable  usages  were 
disregarded.  His  attendance  upon  divine  serv 
ice,  his  zeal  in  the  study  of  the  Apostolic  Writ 
ings  and  in  the  erecting  of  shrines  to  the  martyr 
Marnas,  and  his  performance  of  certain  clerical 


VICISTI  GALLIL.EE 

functions  connected  with  the  public  worship  of 
his  day,  may  all  have  been  due,  as  Theodoret 
believes,  to  a  slavish  fear  of  Constantius.  His 
very  life  depended  upon  his  espousal  of  the  new 
faith,  and  every  selfish  interest  inclined  him  in 
the  same  direction.  There  were  cogent  reasons 
why  he  should  inwardly  despise  the  faith  he 
had  publicly  espoused — reasons  growing  out  of 
certain  peculiarities  of  his  temperament.  He 
had  inherited  from  a  cultivated  and  pleasure- 
loving  mother  a  fondness  for  the  beautiful  in 
art  and  letters.  Guided  by  the  refined  taste  of 
his  congenial  and  faithful  instructor,  the  aged 
Mardonius,  he  had  learned  to  understand  and 
enjoy  the  superb  literature  of  ancient  Pagan 
Greece.  He  sat  with  delight  at  the  feet  of 
Homer  and  Hesiod.  To  him  'Iliad'  and  'Odyssey' 
were  more  than  epic  poems ;  they  were  religious 
literature,  alive  with  the  charm  and  glory  of  a 
mythology  that  made  an  almost  resistless  appeal 
to  his  imagination.  His  heart  was  with  the  old 
order  of  things.  Temples  and  statues  were  a 
perpetual  delight,  as  were  also  theatre  and 
Academy.  Poets  and  philosophers  were  his 
companions  and  friends.  With  absorbed  atten 
tion  he  heard  the  rhapsodists  recite  to  the  tinkle 
of  the  harp  the  marvellous  story  of  Troy.  The 
pictures  of  Xenxis  and  the  statues  of  Parxi- 
teles  charmed  him.  The  Odes  of  Pindar  and  the 
pages  of  Herodotus  were  forever  sounding  in  his 
ear.  Is  it,  then,  astonishing  that  the  young 
Julian  did  not  in  his  heart  love  a  faith  that  op- 


240  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

posed  all  these,  and  that  sought  to  substitute  for 
the  spell  of  their  enchantment  a  rude  and  fanatical 
priesthood? 

The  first  indication  of  revolt  against  the  barren 
and  desolate  thing  misnamed  Christianity  which 
he  had  outwardly,  and  it  may  be  under  pressure, 
embraced,  is  to  be  found  in  the  heed  which  he 
gave  to  the  predictions  of  the  soothsayer  of 
Nicomedia.  The  young  man,  unable  to  explain 
those  predictions  upon  natural  grounds,  was  in 
clined  to  view  them  as  of  divine  origin.  To  him 
they  appeared  quite  as  wonderful  and  more  im 
pressive  than  the  miracles  recorded  in  the  New 
Testament.  There  is  mention  in  history  of  a 
secret  conference  with  certain  Platonic  philoso 
phers  who  claimed  to  be  able  to  introduce  the 
human  soul  into  the  immediate  presence  of  the 
gods.  These  philosophers  were  men  of  large 
acquaintance  with  the  world  and  with  human 
nature.  In  the  unfolding  of  their  philosophical 
tenets  they  surrounded  themselves  with  an  elegant 
and  refined  mystery  peculiarly  fascinating  to 
the  poetical  imagination  and  cultivated  tastes 
of  Julian.  They  flattered  him  with  their  rever 
ential  courtesy  and  by  the  kindly  and  gracious 
way  in  which  they  fostered  his  genius,  which 
they  were  not  slow  in  discovering.  They  en 
couraged  him  to  seek  the  assistance  of  Edesius 
of  Pergamus,  who  was  at  that  time  the  leader 
of  their  school.  Edesius  conducted  the  youth 
to  the  Temple  of  Hecate,  the  mysterious  divinity 
whom  the  ancients  sometimes  identified  with 


VICISTI  GALLILJEE 

Diana  of  "the  moonlight  splendor  of  the  night," 
and  sometimes  with  Proserpine  the  goddess  of 
darkness,  secrecy,  and  witchcraft  who  visited  the 
earth  at  night.  Her  approach  was  made  known 
by  the  barking  of  dogs,  those  animals  being  able 
to  see  her  form  before  it  became  visible  to  men. 
The  marvellous  disclosures  of  that  Temple  were 
more  than  Julian  could  withstand.  There  are 
reasons  for  believing  that  he  visited  the  adjoin 
ing  shrine  of  Apollo,  but  of  that  we  have  no 
positive  information.  In  the  Temple  of  Hecate, 
a  pinch  of  sacred  incense  having  been  burned  to 
purify  the  reason,  there  appeared  in  flame  and 
smoke  what  Julian  seems  to  have  received  with 
neither  question  nor  doubt  as  the  Divine  Pres 
ence.  What  was  it  that  Julian  saw,  and  that  so 
greatly  influenced  his  after  life?  Various  con 
jectures  have  been  offered,  but  among  them  that 
of  a  purely  subjective  or  mental  image  resulting 
from  the  influence  of  narcotic  vapors  mingling 
with  the  fragrant  smoke  of  burning  incense  has 
of  late  years  secured  the  largest  favor.  Virgil's 
description  of  the  Pythoness  under  the  power 
of  inspiration  shows  how  completely  the  human 
mind  could  at  times  come  under  the  control  of  the 
"divine  fury'*  known  to  ancient  Roman  worship. 

"Her  color  changed;  her  face  was  not  the  same 
And  hollow  groans   from  her  deep  spirit  came. 
Her  hair  stood  up;  convulsive  rage  possessed 
Her   trembling   limbs,    and   heaved   her   laboring 

breast. 
Greater  than  human  kind  she  seemed  to  look, 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

And  with  an  accent  more  than  mortal  spoke, 
Her  staring  eyes  with  sparkling  fury  roll, 
When  all  the  god  came  rushing  on  her  soul. 
At  length  her  fury  fell;  her  foaming  ceased, 
And  ebbing  in  her  soul,  the  god  decreased." 

Sometimes  the  worshiper  shared  with  the  in 
spired  women  of  the  temple  or  of  the  cave  their 
mental  excitement.  Hypnotic  control  is  another 
possibility.  It  may  be  the  Divine  Presence  was 
represented  to  the  stimulated  imagination  by  a 
beautiful  woman  trained  to  perform  her  part  in 
the  religious  enchantment.  All  these  sources  of 
impression  were  known  in  some  way  and  in  some 
degree  to  the  religous  worship  and  service  of  the 
ancients.  Trickery  and  fraud  were  not  infre 
quently  made  use  of,  and  sometimes  natural 
forces  and  agents  were  unwittingly  pressed  into 
service  by  men  who  believed  them  to  be  super 
natural.  There  has  been  recently  discovered,  so 
it  is  reported,  the  secret  of  the  "eternal  flames" 
that  burned  from  year  to  year  without  any  visi 
ble  renewing  of  fuel  upon  the  altar  of  Zoroaster 
on  the  "Sacred  Isle"  in  the  Caspian  Sea,  where 
the  founder  of  the  fire-cult  preached  his  re 
ligious  doctrines.  The  altar  was  situated  di 
rectly  over  a  deposit  of  natural  gas.  Neither 
the  prophet  nor  his  followers  had  any  knowledge 
of  the  gas,  which  had  probably  been  lighted  by 
accident,  and  which,  when  once  lighted,  con 
tinued  to  burn  year  after  year.  The  mysterious 
flame,  sustained  with  apparently  no  renewal  of 
material  for  combustion,  was  easily  mistaken  for 


VICISTI  GALLIL^EE 

a  celestial  fire  kindled  and  supported  in  attesta 
tion  of  the  doctrine  and  faith  taught  and  served 
at  the  altar.  A  fire  that  burned  for  only  a 
brief  time  authenticated  the  mission  of  Elijah 
and  occasioned  the  overthrow  of  the  priests  of 
Baal.  How  much  more  convincing  to  men  living 
under  a  primitive  civilization  must  have  ap 
peared  the  "eternal  flames"  that  required,  so  far 
as  could  be  discovered,  neither  care  nor  fuel. 
Were  those  men  and  women  who  centuries  ago 
adored  that  mystical  fire  fools  or  impostors? 
They  were  neither.  They  made  the  best  use 
of  the  limited  knowledge  within  their  reach. 
More  could  not  have  been  required  of  them.  I 
cannot  believe  that  the  Infinite  Mercy  held  them 
accountable  for  a  light  that  never  illuminated 
their  darkened  understanding,  and  for  opportuni 
ties  they  never  enjoyed.  What  to  them  was  a 
perpetual  miracle  is  to  us  a  natural  phenomenon ; 
and  doubtless  some  things  that  now  strike  us  as 
supernatural  will  in  future  years  seem  common 
place  and  quite  within  the  power  of  the  ordinary 
forces  of  the  world  to  accomplish.  Others  will 
view  them  without  surprise  and  explain  them 
without  difficulty.  We  do  not  know  what  Julian 
saw  in  the  Temple  of  Hecate,  but  whatever  it 
was,  we  are  told  that  the  first  time  he  saw  it  he 
was  filled  with  fear  and  instinctively  made  the 
sign  of  the  cross.  At  once  the  entire  display 
vanished,  and  where  had  been  celestial  glory  was 
only  empty  air.  Twice  the  same  sign  dissolved 
the  pageant.  Surprised  at  this,  Julian  ex- 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

claimed,  "After  all,  then,  the  Christian  sign  has 
power!"  The  philosophers  who  had  him  in 
training  were  not  in  the  least  disconcerted. 
"Noble  prince,"  said  they,  "do  you  think  that 
you  have  frightened  the  gods?  They  fear 
nothing.  They  vanished  because  they  were  un 
willing  to  associate  with  a  profane  person." 
The  explanation,  sophistical  and  disingenuous 
as  it  appears  to  us,  satisfied  the  eager  and  inex 
perienced  mind  of  the  young  Julian,  and  the  sign 
was  not  repeated.  Again  a  supernatural 
splendor  illuminated  the  sacred  recesses  of  the 
Temple,  and  a  mysterious  voice,  possibly  the 
musical  echo  of  his  own  desires  or  of  his  excited 
imagination,  or,  it  may  be,  the  unscrupulous 
work  of  one  versed  in  the  art  of  ventriloquism, 
sounded  in  his  ears,  and  it  was  revealed  to  him 
he  should  soon  ascend  the  throne  and  destroy 
the  religion  of  the  Galilean. 

Constantius  died  November  3d,  A.  D.  355,  and 
three  days  later  Julian  was  declared  Caesar. 
His  sword  and  his  pen  were  equally  at  the  serv 
ice  of  the  faith  he  loved.  Above  all  things  he 
desired  to  restore  the  ornate  splendor  of  the 
old  order,  and  to  give  again  to  the  discrowned 
gods  their  lost  dignity;  he  would  rekindle  the 
sacred  fire  upon  altars  that  had  grown  cold,  and 
rebuild  the  ruined  temples.  We  are  in  posses 
sion  of  a  body  of  literature,  largely  controver 
sial,  that  he  left  to  the  world  and  that  proves 
beyond  question  the  sincerity  of  his  purpose, 
while  it  exhibits  the  fine  scholarship  and  beauti- 


VICISTI  GALLIL.EE 

ful  training  that  won  for  him  the  admiration  of 
many  who  neither  sympathized  with  his  faith 
nor  desired  the  success  of  his  plans.  If  we  put 
aside  the  thought  of  his  defection  and  consider 
his  books  as  literature  we  cannot  fail  of  being 
impressed  with  their  strength,  reasonableness, 
and  moderation.  His  orations  and  epistles  ex 
hibit  great  natural  ability,  and  in  but  few  places 
are  they  disfigured  by  bitterness  of  spirit  or  a 
vindictive  temper,  which  is  much  more  than  can 
be  said  for  most  of  the  polemics  of  his  day. 
He  had  what  has  been  called  "the  saving  grace 
of  humor."  He  was  quick-witted,  good  at  re 
partee,  and  able  to  condense  much  important 
material  within  a  narrow  compass.  His  knowl 
edge  of  jurisprudence  and  his  acquaintance  with 
the  art  of  governing  men  astonishes  when  we 
consider  the  age  in  which  he  lived  and  the  cir 
cumstances  by  which  he  was  surrounded.  Yet 
with  all  these  rare  attainments,  his  understanding 
of  history  and  human  nature,  and  his  skill  in 
dialectics  and  philosophy,  he  failed  entirely  in 
grasping  the  genius  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived. 
The  signs  of  the  times  he  could  not  read.  The 
ornate,  artistic,  literary,  and  beautiful  Pagan 
ism  of  his  mind  had  no  reality  in  the  world 
around  him.  He  idealized  with  a  poet's  fancy 
the  vulgar  and  commonplace.  The  gods  were 
dead  but  he  knew  it  not.  His  mistake  was  radi 
cal  and  its  cost  was  great.  Desiring  the  good 
of  his  fellow-men,  he  yet  antagonized  their  best 
interests  and  identified  his  brief  reign  with  an 


246  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

unworthy  and  declining  cause.  The  Chris 
tianity  of  his  time  was  miserably  corrupt,  and 
in  some  respects  the  Paganism  it  supplanted  was 
its  superior;  still  it  was  true  then  as  it  is  now 
that  the  hopes  of  both  the  world  and  of  the  in 
dividual  gather  around  and  center  in  the  cross 
of  the  triumphant  Galilean. 

That  the  Emperor  resorted  to  severe  measures 
in  his  effort  to  overthrow  the  church  and  re 
store  the  worship  of  the  gods  is  conceded,  but  it 
should  be  remembered  to  the  credit  of  the  man, 
and  for  a  correct  understanding  of  the  end  he 
had  in  view,  that  those  measures  were  always 
regretted  and  were  resorted  to  only  when  in  his 
opinion  sanguinary  means  could  not  be  avoided. 
In  one  of  his  Epistles  he  wrote: 

"Again  and  again  I  charge  all  votaries  of  the  true 
worship  to  do  no  wrong  to  the  Galilean  masses, 
neither  to  raise  hand  nor  direct  insult  against  them. 
For  those  who  go  wrong  in  matters  of  the  highest 
import  deserve  pity,  not  hatred,  for  religion  is  ver 
ily  chiefest  of  goods,  and  irreligion  the  worst  of 
evils." 

Again  he  wrote  in  an  Epistle: 

"By  the  gods,  I  want  no  Galilean  killed,  or  wrong 
fully  scourged,  or  otherwise  injured.  Godly  men 
I  do  desire  to  be  encouraged,  and  I  plainly  say  they 
ought  to  be  encouraged.  This  Galilean  folly  has 
turned  almost  everything  upside  down:  nothing  but 
the  mercy  of  the  gods  has  saved  us  all.  There 
fore  we  ought  to  honor  the  gods  and  godly  men  and 
cities." 


VICISTI  GALLII^EE 

Sozomenus,  who  lived  in  the  first  half  of  the 
fifth  century,  says,  in  his  "Ecclesiastic a  His- 
toria"  that  Julian  "while  minded  in  every  way 
to  support  Paganism,  accounted  the  compul 
sion  or  punishment  of  unwilling  worshipers  ill- 
advised."  St.  Jerome  tells  us  that  Julian's  sys 
tem  was  "a  gentle  violence  that  strove  to  win, 
not  drive."  Crosius  thinks  the  Emperor  "was 
guilty  of  assailing  Christianity  by  craft  rather 
than  by  repression,"  and  that  he  "wanted  to 
make  converts  by  stimulating  ambition  rather 
than  by  playing  upon  the  fears  of  men." 

Julian  strove  in  every  way  to  make  severity 
unnecessary.  Yet  he  must  have  been  at  times 
sorely  provoked  to  vengeance  by  the  violence 
and  insolence  of  his  enemies,  some  of  whom 
spared  him  not  but  upon  every  occasion  held  him 
up  to  the  derision  of  the  world.  Gregory 
named  him  with  Cain,  Aliab,  Herod,  and  the 
Sodomites.  This  last  comparison  was  made  in 
the  face  of  the  well-known  fact  of  his  exceptional 
temperance  and  chastity.  He  lived  with  almost 
austere  moderation  in  an  age  of  rampant  vice. 
There  are  verses  extant  in  which  he  is  described 
as  a  "slayer  of  souls,"  "Satan's  foul  sink  of 
crime,"  and  a  "tyrant  accursed."  Public 
prayers  were  offered  for  his  destruction.  Yet, 
if  history  may  be  believed,  Julian  was  ever  slow 
to  retaliate.  Few  petitions,  it  would  seem,  were 
put  up  for  his  conversion.  His  destruction  was 
the  one  thought  and  wish  of  his  adversaries. 
The  boast  was  openly  made  by  men  who  viewed 


248  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

prayer  as  a  kind  of  magic  that  Julian  would  be 
prayed  to  his  death.  Libanius,  the  Sophist  whom 
Julian  addressed  as  his  "Dearest  Brother,"  wrote : 
"Does  any  one  desire  to  know  who  was  the  man 
that  killed  the  Emperor?  I  know  not  his  name, 
but  that  he  was  none  of  the  avowed  and  armed 
enemy  there  is  clear  proof."  Libanius  insinu 
ates  that  the  assassin  was  a  Christian. 

Julian's  effort  to  reform  Paganism  was  the 
result  of  his  early  Christian  education.  The 
light  of  the  Galilean  had  rendered  the  darkness 
and  deformity  of  the  old  Paganism  intolerable. 
It  was  Julian's  purpose  to  engraft  upon  the  re 
ligion  of  the  gods  the  ethics  or  morals  of  Chris 
tianity.  To  that  end  he  insisted  that  priests 
should  lead  holy  lives;  they  were  to  relieve  the 
distresses  of  their  fellow  men,  to  do  good  to  all 
men,  to  avoid  all  wicked  actions  and  all  indecent 
language.  They  were  to  give  their  time  to 
study  and  to  the  worship  of  the  gods.  Three 
times  each  day  they  were  to  attend  the  temple 
with  which  they  were  connected.  And  only  the 
pious  and  virtuous  were  to  be  elevated  to  the 
priesthood.  "Such,"  to  use  the  words  of  Milner 
"was  the  fire  which  the  Apostate  stole  from 
heaven,  and  such  was  his  artifice  in  managing 
it."  Julian  established  schools  for  the  educa,- 
tion  of  young  men,  and  he  also  founded  hos 
pitals,  because,  to  use  his  own  words,  "the 
Galileans  relieve  both  their  own  poor  and  ours." 
But  the  religion  of  the  gods  was  a  dead  religion, 

i  "History  of  the  Church  of  Christ,"  Chap.  VIII. 


VICISTI  GALLIL.EE  249 

and  no  misguided  effort  could  infuse  into  its 
heart  the  fire  of  life. 

That  Julian  despised  the  Christianity  of  his 
day,  which  was  very  unlike  the  religion  of  Jesus 
in  many  of  its  most  salient  features,  is  not 
strange.  But  that  so  bright  a  mind  was  wholly 
blind  to  the  power  of  the  Cross  in  any  shape  it 
could  assume  is  truly  astonishing.  Julian  was 
a  philosopher  and  well-wisher  of  his  race.  He 
had  a  religious  nature  and  desired  to  see  virtue 
prevail.  But  the  arguments  he  advanced  against 
the  new  and  rising  faith  were  neither  forcible 
nor  in  any  measure  original.  They  were  old  and 
had  been  refuted  many  times.  They  were 
founded  upon  a  complete  misconception  of  Chris 
tianity  and  an  irrational  idealization  of  the  old 
Pagan  cult. 

Julian  died,  wounded  in  battle,  at  the  age  of 
thirty-four,  A.  D.  363.  Tradition  has  it  that  in 
the  moment  of  death  he  threw  up  into  the  air  a 
handful  of  his  own  heart's  blood,  exclaiming, 
"Vicisti,  Galilee !"— "Thou  hast  conquered,  O 
Galilean !" 

Fantastic  is  the  tale,  and  yet  in  it  there  is  a 
truth  at  once  sad  and  glorious.  Could  Julian 
return  from  the  dark  shadows  of  the  grave,  would 
he  not  rejoice  with  us  all  in  that  bitter  defeat 
which  was  in  the  end  so  great  a  victory?  Let  us 
say  with  Ibsen  in  his  play  of  "The  Emperor 
Julian" : 

"Here  lies  a  splendid  broken  tool  of  God." 


250  LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

ADDENDUM 

It  may  be  Julian  had  in  the  Temple  of  Hecate 
some  such  experience  as  was  vouchsafed  the 
initiant  into  the  mysteries  of  Eleusis.  These  are 
described  by  Apuleius  and  Dion  Chrysostome, 
who  themselves  passed  through  the  truly  awful 
ceremony.  After  entering-  the  grand  vestibule 
of  the  mystic  shrine,  the  aspirant  was  led  by 
the  hierphant,  amidst  surrounding  darkness  and 
incumbent  horrors,  through  all  those  extended 
aisles,  winding  avenues,  and  gloomy  adyta  men 
tioned  by  the  writers  named  as  belonging  to  the 
mystic  temples  of  Egypt,  Eleusis,  and  India. 
The  metempsychosis  was  one  of  the  leading  prin- 
cipia  taught  in  those  temples,  and  the  first  stage 
in  the  induction  of  the  new  aspirant  represented 
the  wanderings  of  the  benighted  soul  through 
the  mazes  of  vice  and  error  before  initiation.1 
Presently  the  ground  began  to  rock  beneath  his 
feet,  the  whole  temple  trembled,  and  strange  and 
dreadful  voices  were  heard  through  the  midnight 
silence.  To  these  succeeded  other  louder  and 
more  terrific  noises,  resembling  thunder;  while 
quick  and  vivid  flashes  of  lightning  darted 
through  the  cavern,  displaying  to  his  view  many 
ghastly  sights  and  hideous  spectres  emblematical 
of  the  various  vices,  diseases,  infirmities,  and 
calamities  incident  to  that  state  of  terrestrial 
bondage  from  which  his  struggling  soul  was  now 

i  "It  was  a  rude  and  fearful  march  through  night  and 
darkness." — Stobceus. 


VICISTI  GALLIL.EE  251 

going  to  emerge,  as  well  as  of  the  horrors  and 
penal  torments  of  the  guilty  in  a  future  state. 

At  this  period,  all  the  pageants  of  the  system 
of  worship  represented,  all  the  train  of  gods 
both  supernal  and  infernal,  passed  in  awful  suc 
cession  before  him ;  and  a  hymn,  called  "The 
ology  of  the  Gods,"  recounting  the  genealogy 
and  functions  of  each,  was  sung.  After  this  the 
whole  fabulous  detail  was  solemnly  recited  by  the 
mystagogue ;  a  divine  hymn  in  honor  of  ETER 
NAL  AND  IMMUTABLE  TRUTH  was  chanted,  and 
the  profounder  mysteries  commenced.  And  now, 
arrived  on  the  verge  of  death  and  initiation, 
everything  wears  a  dreadful  aspect ;  it  is  all  hor 
ror,  trembling,  and  astonishment.  An  icy  chilli 
ness  seizes  his  limbs ;  a  copious  dew,  like  the 
damp  of  real  death,  bathes  his  temples ;  he  stag 
gers,  and  his  faculties  begin  to  fail.  Then  the 
scene  is  of  a  sudden  changed,  and  the  doors  of 
the  interior  and  splendidly  illuminated  temple 
are  thrown  wide  open.  A  miraculous  and  divine 
light  discloses  itself,  and  shining  plains  and  flow 
ery  meadows  open  on  all  hands  before  him.  Ar 
rived  at  the  bourn  of  mortality,  after  having 
trod  the  gloomy  threshold  of  Proserpine,  the  ini- 
tiant  passed  rapidly  through  all  the  surrounding 
elements ;  and  at  deep  midnight  beheld  the  sun 
shining  in  meridian  splendor.1  The  clouds  of 
mental  error  and  the  shades  of  real  darkness 
being  now  alike  dissipated,  both  the  soul  and  the 

i"Apuleii   Metamorphosis,"   lib.   ii.   v.   i.   p.   273.     Edit. 
Bipout,  1788. 


LOVE  AND  LETTERS 

body  of  the  initiated  experienced  a  delightful 
feeling  of  divine  repose.  While  the  soul,  puri 
fied  with  lustrations,  bounded  in  a  blaze  of  glory, 
the  body  dissolved  in  a  tide  of  overwhelming 
transport.  Plato  says,  "The  aspirants  saw  celes 
tial  beauty  in  all  the  dazzling  radiance  of  its 
perfection.  They  joined  in  the  glorified  chorus, 
and  were  admitted  to  the  beatific  vision ;  they  were 
initiated  into  the  most  blessed  of  all  mysteries." 


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